Exploring the Unknown - NASA's History Office

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OBSERVING THE EARTH FROM SPACE
Starting in 1972 with the third satellite in the ITOS series, NASA replaced the television
cameras that had been carried on all earlier flights with a two-channel scanning radiometer
providing visible and infrared imagery. 36 This infrared imagery was used to monitor
nighttime cloud cover and to produce sea-surface temperature maps. This same satellite
(designated NOAA-2) carried the first operational sounding instruments, which provided
vertical temperature profiles through the atmosphere. These instruments provided the
data needed to meet the third of the objectives established in 1966. Additional improvements
to the low-altitude satellites made in the late 1970s resulted in the TIROS-N design,
carrying a finer resolution radiometer and sounder as well as a data collection platform
and a solar energetic particle monitor. 37
ATS-1 and -3 provided data to meet the second of the 1966 objectives, but budgetary
constraints delayed the operation of a geosynchronous meteorological satellite system
until the mid-1970s. In the interim, NASA funded two prototype Synchronous
Meteorological Satellites, launched in May 1974 and February 1975. The space agency
then launched the first Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) on
October 16, 1975. Sounding instruments were also included in improved GOES satellites,
starting with GOES-4 in September 1980.
While NASA developed new capabilities for meteorological satellites and the National
Weather Service integrated the resulting data into the operational weather forecasting system,
budgetary pressures continued to grow. The Reagan administration wanted to transfer
operational space systems to private industry to cut the federal budget. In early 1981,
Comsat proposed taking over both the Landsat (see below) and the meteorological satellite
systems; officials in the Reagan administration responded with enthusiasm. Congress,
however, disagreed strongly with the idea of privatizing meteorological satellites; members
argued that the government properly provided weather forecasts as a public good and
therefore should retain control of the production of meteorological satellite data. 38 Late
in 1983, Congress passed and President Reagan signed an appropriations bill that included
a specific prohibition against the sale of the meteorological satellite system to private
industry. 39 However, the issue of charging users for weather satellite data arose again in the
1990s as a result of cooperative programs with other countries that took such an approach.
Clearly, the balance among technological possibilities, user needs, and financial limitations
shaped not only the origins but also the continuing development of the meteorological
satellite system. Weather forecasts improved, although not as much as
meteorologists had predicted when they looked forward to the new capabilities various
satellite technologies would provide. Part of the problem was that the path from a good
idea to its incorporation into the operational system was inevitably slow and rocky.
Probably, however, the more important factor was that predicting weather was, and continues
to be, a problem of much greater complexity than scientists had anticipated.
Converged Polar-Orbiting Meteorological Satellite Systems
35. The first TIROS satellite was an operational prototype; subsequent satellites in the series were to be
renamed ESSA 10, 11, and so on, after launch. However, the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration replaced ESSA, and the satellites were named NOAA. It is at this point that the Weather Bureau
was renamed the National Weather Service.
36. Hill, Weather from Above, pp. 37–38.
37. Ibid., pp. 49–51.
38. Press Release, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, September 20, 1983;
“Weather Satellites,” Congressional Record, S. 14367, October 20, 1983; “Transfer of Civil Meteorological Satellites,”
Congressional Record, H.R. 9812-9822, November 14, 1983. See also Hill, Weather from Above, p. 60.
39. Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress, “Remote Sensing and the Private Sector: Issues for
Discussion,” Technological Memorandum (March 1984): 22.