Happy Birthday TIROS-1

The following is an excerpt of a press release from the NOAA about the launch into space of America first weather satellite. I should of baked a cake. Please remember...I did not write the following but it is good stuff.

50th Anniversary of the Satellite that “Forever Changed Weather Forecasting”

Fifty years ago today, the world’s first weather satellite lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and opened a new and exciting dimension in weather forecasting.

The first image from the satellite, known as TIROS-1 (Television Infrared Observation Satellite), was a fuzzy picture of thick bands and clusters of clouds over the United States. An image captured a few days later revealed a typhoon about a 1,000 miles east of Australia. TIROS-1, a polar-orbiting satellite, weighed 270 pounds and carried two cameras and two video recorders. Though the satellite only lasted 78 days, its impact is still visible today.

“This satellite forever changed weather forecasting,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “Since TIROS-1, meteorologists have far greater information about severe weather and can issue more accurate forecasts and warnings that save lives and protect property.”

Throughout the 1960s, each TIROS spacecraft carried increasingly advanced instruments and technology. By 1965, meteorologists combined 450 TIROS images into the first global view of the world’s weather.

“We could not provide skillful hurricane forecasts without the crucial imagery and data from geostationary and polar-orbiting satellites,” said Chris Landsea, Ph.D., science operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Before satellites, tropical storms and hurricanes were often missed if they stayed out over the open ocean.”

When the more advanced TIROS-N satellite series were launched between 1978 and 1981, the name of the spacecraft changed to Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites, or POES. The POES orbit the Earth at an altitude of about 500 miles and circle the poles once every 102 minutes.

The last of the TIROS satellites, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Feb. 6, 2009. This satellite (NOAA-19) and its compliment, a European satellite called Metop-A, provide a complete picture of the globe every six hours.

NOAA operates America’s constellation of environmental satellites – the GOES and POES. Both satellites monitor weather and collect data about the Earth’s climate, and are capable of receiving distress signals from emergency beacons and relaying this information to first responders worldwide. Since 1982, NOAA satellites have aided in the rescue of 250 people on average each year. NOAA satellites also receive signals from remote observation instruments on the Earth including ocean buoys, which provide tsunami warnings.















NOAA: www.noaa.gov

NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service: www.nesdis.noaa.gov

NASA: www.nasa.gov