TIROS-1 50th Anniversary

[Testing]

First Weather SAT.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories201 ... tiros.html

 

[GalaxyQwest]

You actually believe that satellites could process photographs in the spacecraft then send the pictures down to earth hours later back then? Did they have a Kodak kiosk up there?

 

[origin]

my message had too few characters

 

[Testing]

You actually believe that satellites could process photographs in the spacecraft then send the pictures down to earth hours later back then? Did they have a Kodak kiosk up there?

Television Infrared Observation Satellite
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1960 graphic of TIROS meteorological satellite system showing components.
First TV image of Earth from spaceTIROS, or Television Infrared Observation Satellite, is a series of early weather satellites launched by NASA, beginning with TIROS-1 in 1960. The program was extremely successful in proving the usefulness of satellite weather observation and in its time, perhaps considered to be too successful; causing people to question the need for many of the military spy apparatus that were in development or use at the time. TIROS demonstrated at that time that "the key to genius is often simplicity." [1]

The 270 lb satellite was launched into orbit by a Thor Able rocket. Drum shaped with a 42 inch diameter, and height of 19 inches, the TIROS satellite carried two 6 inch long television cameras with it as it entered its nearly circular low earth orbit. One of the cameras had a wide-angle lens with an f/1.6 (focal length) that could view 800 miles of the earth. The other camera had a telephoto lens with an f/1.8 and had a 10 to 12 power telephoto effect over the wide angle camera.

The satellite itself was stabilized in its orbit by spinning like a gyroscope. When it first separated from the rockets third stage, it was spinning at about 136 revolutions per minute (rpm). To take unblurred photographs, a de-spin mechanism slowed the satellite down to 12 rpm after the orbit was accomplished.

The camera shutters made possible the series of still pictures which were stored and transmitted back to earth via 2-watt FM transmitters as the satellite approached one of its ground command points. After transmission, the tape was erased or cleaned and readied for more recording.

TIROS continued as the ESSA TIROS Operational System, and was eventually succeeded by the NOAA ITOS (Improved TIROS Operational System), or TIROS-M, and then by the TIROS-N and Advanced TIROS-N series of satellites. The naming of the satellite becomes a little confusing because the satellites share the same name as the over-seeing organization, such as ESSA & ESSA 1 and NOAA & NOAA M.

Participants in this satellite project included the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, United States Army Signal Research and Development Lab, Radio Corporation of America, the United States Weather Bureau, and the United States Naval Photographic Interpretation Center [2].

TIROS-1 (A)- launched April 1, 1960, suffered electrical system failure on June 15 1960

 

[MarkStanaway]

You actually believe that satellites could process photographs in the spacecraft then send the pictures down to earth hours later back then? Did they have a Kodak kiosk up there?

Believe it or not this was actually the system used by the Lunar Orbiter missions of the mid '60s.
According to a NASA Fact Sheet of the time on Lunar Orbiter's camera system:
....'Its camera system, housed in a temperature controlled container, snaps pictures, develops film, and converts the images on the negatives into electrical signals for transmission to earth.'

From a May 1968 Scientific American article some extracts of how the process worked:
'The exposed film was developed in a processor using the Bimat technique devised by Eastman. In the Bimat method the exposed film is pressed against a special processing web, or rolled strip, with a gelatin layer that has been soaked in a solution that soaks and fixes the film in one step. The film was then separated from the processing web and was dried by being passed over an electrically heated drum. The developed film was read out by an electronic scanner that worked with a rapidly moving spot of light. One band of film was scanned at a time and this required 17000 horizontal movements by the spot of light and took 22 seconds. Each band occupied 0.1 inch and the film was advanced after each band had been scanned. It took 43 minutes to scan the 11.6 inches of film taken up by one wide-angle and one telephoto exposure.
The strips of 35mm film each representing one scanned band of spacecraft film, give the Lunar Orbiter photographs their characteristic striped appearance.'

Mark

 

[EarthlingX]

I think, you missed the info here (hint : date) :
Welcome New Mods!

 

[MeteorWayne]

Mark, it is amazing how far we've come in those 50 years, now we do imaging across huge chunks of the elctromagnetic spectrum with spectaular resolution, in near real time, on multiple planets as well as looking out at the rest of the Ujniverse.

 

[Testing]

A bit more info

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsro ... =eoa-nnews

 

[EarthlingX]

A bit more info

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsro ... =eoa-nnews

Nice

For a higher resolution version of the video, visit the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?10552

For the YouTube version, visit:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe4jGbbXnvw[/youtube]

For more information about the TIROS program, visit:
http://nasascience.nasa.gov/missions/tiros

For NASA's official press release on TIROS-1's fiftieth anniversary, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/ap ... rsary.html