ABSTRACT
In April 1960, only 3.5 years after the first man-made satellite orbited the Earth, the United States began its environmental satellite program with the launch of TIROS-1, the first satellite in its TIROS (Television InfraRed Observation Satellite) series. This achievement clearly demonstrated the possibility of acquiring images of the Earth’s cloud systems from space, and TIROS became the first in a long series of satellites launched primarily for the purpose of meteorological research. A detailed account of the first 30 years of meteorological satellite systems is given by Rao et al. (1990). An enormous number of other satellites have now been launched for a wide range of environmental remote sensing work.
