Project SCORE (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment) was the world’s first
communications satellite. Launched aboard an American
Atlas rocket on December 18, 1958, SCORE provided a first test of a communications relay system in space, as well as the first successful use of the Atlas as a launch vehicle. It captured world attention by broadcasting a Christmas message via short wave radio from U.S. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower through an on-board tape recorder. The satellite was popularly dubbed "
The Talking Atlas". SCORE, as a geopolitical strategy, placed the United States at an even technological par with the Soviet Union as a highly functional response to the
Sputnik 1 and
Sputnik 2 satellites.