Telstar 1

Telstar 1¹

Launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962, Telstar 1 was the first privately sponsored space launch. A medium-altitude satellite, Telstar was placed in an elliptical orbit completed once every 2 hours and 37 minutes, inclined at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the equator, with perigee about 1000 km from Earth and apogee about 6000 km from Earth. Possibly due to radiation damage to it's transistors, Telstar went out of service in early December 1962, but was restarted by a workaround in early January 1963. However once again a transistor failure occurred, this time irreparably, and Telstar 1 went out of service on February 21, 1963. ² The role of the USS Enterprise, if any, is unknown.

Notes:
1) Source: Wikipedia