TIROS-1 and the History of the First Decade of Weather Satellites

TIROS-1, the first weather satellite, was launched on Apr 1, 1960 almost 60 year ago. In 2020, we celebrate the 60^th anniversary of its launch. A retrospective analysis helps reveal how TIROS-1 and the first decade of weather satellites set the foundation for better understanding today’s satellites. Many famous innovative engineers, scientists, and meteorologists such as Suomi, Parent, Fritz, and others first forged ideas and brought them into existence. Visionaries such as these developed instruments, satellite designs, orbits, data flow mechanisms, operational structures for providing global observations, and meteorological procedures that were used for operational forecasting. For the first time, observations from space were used by operational forecasters.

TIROS-1 provided the first steps leading to today’s remarkable high resolution products for all of us to see from JPSS and the GOES-R series. The history, development, and evolution of early satellite systems and applications for operational use will be presented from the standpoint of the first decade of weather satellites.