Bell Telephone ad for operation of Echo 1
The Goldstone station for tracking the Echo Satellite
Image Source: www.jpl.nasa.gov

"This photograph shows the first pass of Echo 1, NASA's first communications satellite, over the Goldstone Tracking Station managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California, in the early morning of Aug. 12, 1960. The movement of the antenna, star trails (shorter streaks), and Echo 1 (the long streak in the middle) are visible in this image.

"Project Echo bounced radio signals off a 10-story-high, aluminum-coated balloon orbiting the Earth. This form of "passive" satellite communication -- which mission managers dubbed a "satelloon" -- was an idea conceived by an engineer from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and was a project managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. JPL's role involved sending and receiving signals through two of its 85-foot-diameter (26-meter-diameter) antennas at the Goldstone Tracking Station in California's Mojave Desert."

Project Echo record label. Note the special graphic of messages reflected off the satellite. 
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Project Echo record label. Note the special graphic of messages reflected off the satellite. 
Detail map of Florida, United States,Holmdel, New Jersey, United States,La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States,California, United States

A: Florida, United States, B: Holmdel, New Jersey, United States, C: La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States, D: California, United States

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Launches the Echo 1 Passive Communications Satellite

8/12/1960 to 12/1/1960
Echo, NASA's first communications satellite, was a passive spacecraft based on a balloon design created by an engineer at the Langley Research Center. Made of Mylar, the satellite measured 10
Image Source: www.nasa.gov
"Echo, NASA's first communications satellite, was a passive spacecraft based on a balloon design created by an engineer at the Langley Research Center. Made of Mylar, the satellite measured 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter. Once in orbit, residual air inside the balloon expanded, and the balloon began its task of reflecting radio transmissions from one ground station back to another. Echo 1 satellites, like this one, generated a lot of interest because they could be seen with the naked eye from the ground as they passed overhead."
On August 12, 1960 the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and NASA launched the Echo 1 passive communications satellite via a Thor-Delta rocket frrom the Cape Canaveral, Launch Complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Echo 1 was a metallized mylar balloon satellite one hundred feet in diameter that acted as a passive reflector of microwave signals, allowing communication signals to be bounced off the satellite from one point on earth to another. Once the satellite was in orbit at a range of 944 to 1,048 miles microwave transmission from JPL was relayed by the satellite to Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey.

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