The Tiros decade

The space age-started by the launch of Sputnik I- is now ten years old. Men have orbited the earth and moon, and spacecraft have landed on the moon and traveled to distant planets. Communications satellites make possible live television among continents and, with the aid of meteorological satellites, giant strides are being made in our understanding of weather. RCA has played a key role in many of these areas, but none more important than its role in the meteorological satellite program-Tiros. Throughout the space decade, RCA has been involved in this program, which provided the first important peaceful and beneficial use of outer space by the nations of the world with the implementation of the Tiros Operational System (TOS) in 1966. This article reviews the performance of the ten Tiros and nine ESSA satellites (part of TOS) orbited during this decade, and gives some insight into the improved TOS satellites that will be launched in the near future.