I realise this is an Earth Observation part of the forum, but started a comms satellites topic anyway
Deployment of ICO Global Communications G1 Satellite:

http://www.ssloral.com/

choose NEWS and then click Video Clips
or directly:

http://www.ssloral.com/downloads/videos/ic...or_vo_short.wmv

Hey, that was very, very cool indeed; thanks, Phil!

Man, they must've been sweating bullets throughout that antenna deployment; amazingly complex operation.

Talking about communications satellites ( or spy satellite ):
What was the highest orbit used for satellites to observe Earth ( we do not count the geo-stationary satellites at 36000 km ).
I guess the Apogee of Russian Molniya orbits lay around 40000 Km ???

Well, if you count observing Earth just because it happens to be in its field of view, then consider the old Vela satellites at 100,000 to 110,000 km.

Talking about comsats, a proposed system for what eventually became Milstar had satellites in polar orbit also at about 110,000 km for higher survivability in a nuclear war. Milstar was expensive enough, the earlier system would have been freaking expensive.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/09012...es-control.html