History of satellites

About Satellites 1957 First artificial satellite In general, a satellite is anything that orbit something else, as, for example, the moon orbits the earth. In a communication context, a satellite is a specialized wireless receiver/transmitter that is launched by a rocket and placed in orbit around the earth. There are hundreds of satellite currently in operation. They are used for such diverse purposes as weather forecasting, television broadcast, amateur radio communications, and the Global positioning System, (GPS).

A little summary of the History of Satellites Satellite launch it began with a basketball sized bundle of technology called sputnik 1. Launched by the Soviet union on October 4, 1957, the world's first artificial satellite was followed four month later by the first U. S. Satellite, explorer 1. The race into space was on, and with it came a new way of looking at the Earth. The Sputnik Launch The first aerial photographs had been taken a century earlier by a French hot- air balloonist. Balloons were briefly used to gather military intelligence during the U. S. Civil war-until it became apparent that they were not immune to gunfire. The early years of satellites were arguably the most exciting with many countries impatient to launch their first satellite. Other to view the ground from on high included attaching tiny cameras to kites and even pigeons. But serious aerial photography didn't begin until a passenger aboard an airplane piloted by co-inventor Wilbur wright snapped the scene below in 1908. By the end of the 20th century, more than 2,200 satellites were circling the planet, many of them providing steady streams of scientific data, along with views of the Earth never before imagined possible. From Steep Hills to Satellites  Balloons to Biplanes The first chance to carry observers aloft came in the first aerial photographs, taken by a french balloonist. At about the same time in the United States, Abraham Lincoln was commissioning the U. S. Army Balloon Corps to spy on confederate troops. As the 19th century closed, kites and pigeons were used to gather images from above. In 1908 Wilbur Wright and Photographer L. P. Bonvillain captured the first photos from a plane. A year later Wright shot the first aerial motion pictures. Spy Planes and Missiles Up until the 1940s remote imaging was driven by innovators, and then used in war. Built by the Nazis to lob warheads at England and other distant enemies, the V-2 rockets reversed that trend. The United States captured a V-2 rocket, equipped it with a camera instead of a bomb, and in 1946 snapped the first photographs of Earth from space. On April 1, 1960, the Television and infrared Observation Satellite (tiros) reached orbit and sent back the first serial images of the Earth's weather patterns, sparking an era of more accurate weather preddiction. Still, airplanes were not out of the remote-sensing  business. In 1962 imagery from a stratosphere-buzzing U-2 spy plane confirmed the existence of a Soviet missile base in Cuba. other planes allowed the U.S. to create an aerial archive and the world's most accurate maps. Angel's Eye View In the 1970s and 80s the view of the land got even better. Although classified military satellites were already on detailed surveillance duty over the planet, civilian technology wasn't far behind. In 1972 the first satellite designed to monitor Earth's changing landscape reached orbit. The Earth Resources technology Satellite (ERTS, later renamed Landsat) started beaming back high resolution images of the land that were both spectacular in their detail and brutally honest about floods, droughts, and damaging land use practices worldwide. Satellite Come of Age Today an armada of satellites is used to monitor such things as oceans, ozone, dust, fires, wind, vegetation, snow and ice cover, rainfall, air pollution, clouds and hurricanes, ocean temperature, 3-D location, urban growth, deforestation, floods, and even earthquakes. All these views and all these ways of seeing the Earth have come not a moment too soon. As the human population continues to explode, scientists and governments need to understand how the planet works as a whole, and how events all over the planet arre a sure way to see that truly big picture.

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