Produced in the early 1960s by the Astro-Electronic Products Division of R.C.A, this NASA film shows the TIROS experimental weather satellite which was the first step of Operation Weather Watch. The film was made by Reid H. Ray Studios of Minneapolis, Minnesota and features a detailed examination of the satellite’s design, construction, testing processes, and method of operation. TIROS was an important step for the United States and proved that surveillance by satellite had great promise. TIROS-I was operational for only 78 days beginning in September 1958 however the program continued until TIROS-X, proving that satellites could be useful tools for surveying global weather conditions from space and preventing natural disasters by looking at cloud cover and radiation.
The TIROS Program (Television Infrared Observation Satellite) was NASA’s first experimental step to determine if satellites could be useful in the study of the Earth. At that time, the effectiveness of satellite observations was still unproven. Since satellites were a new technology, the TIROS Program also tested various design issues for spacecraft: instruments, data and operational parameters. The goal was to improve satellite applications for Earth-bound decisions, such as “should we evacuate the coast because of the hurricane?”. While the program was under the overall direction of NASA the technical direction of the project was done by the U.S. Army Signal Research and Development Laboratory and meteorological analysis was done by The Navy Photo Interpretation Center, The U.S. Weather Bureau, and A.F. Cambridge Research Center.
Opening credits (0:11). Scenes of extreme weather storms (0:50). Weather balloon launch (1:01). US Navy plane used for detecting weather (1:09). Meteorologists at work (1:16). Brief historical background of the NASA Meteorological Satellite Program (1:44). RCA Space Center in East Windsor, New Jersey (1:49). Inception of the Tyros Project, engineers at work (1:59). Close-up of a TIROS satellite (2:08). Building of five Tyros payloads (2:26). Spinning test to determine effect of magnetic drag (2:59). How the satellite is powered (3:18). High-performance test facility and testing devices (3:36-4:28). Mechanical shaker system (3:45). Shock Tester Device (3:59). Eyes of the satellite (4:31). Devices for two-way communication (4:56). What is TIROS? (5:18). Air Force Thor Able Rocket at Cape Canaveral (5:29). Take off of the Air Force Thor Able Rocket at Cape Canaveral with TIROS satellite attached to the third-stage Thor Able Rocket (5:52). Animation of how third-stage rocket carrying a TIROS satellite into its orbital path (6:03). Separation of rocket and satellite (6:05). Globe displaying the orbital path of the satellite and the Earth’s rotation: satellite travels as far north as The Great Lakes and as far south as Australia (7:18). Illustrated diagram explanations of how the satellite photographs cloud formations (7:47). Illustration of primary ground station at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey and back-up stations at Princeton, New Jersey, Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Ka’ena Point, Hawaii on the island of Oahu (8:37). Illustration of globe displaying NASA’s minute-rack system which relays information to NASA’s Computation Center in Washington D.C. (8:50). Programming equipment at primary ground station (9:20). TIROS satellite dishes receive information from the TIROS satellite before it is sent to NASA Computational Center and The U.S. Weather Bureau (9:30). Device to interpret received data – analysis of photos (10:17). Animated explanation of TIROS 2 Satellite Program to measure earth and atmosphere radiation (11:08). Meteorological data hand plotted on maps (12:06). Closing scenes and credits (12:24-14:02).
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
