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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Welcome to This Day in History Class, where

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Speaker 1: we bring you a new tipbit from history every day.

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Speaker 1: Today is April one, nineteen. The day was April one,

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. From Cape Canaveral, Florida, NASA and its partners

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Speaker 1: launched the weather satellite TIROS one, short for Television Infrared

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Speaker 1: Observation Satellite at six in the morning Eastern Standard Time.

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Speaker 1: That day, TYROS one sent back the first ever television

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Speaker 1: picture from space. In nineteen sixty, the space race was

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Speaker 1: gaining momentum as the United States and the Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: competent for dominance in space flight advancement. The nations were

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Speaker 1: launching satellites and lunar probes and sending humans into space.

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Speaker 1: The Tyro's program began in this climate. At the time,

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Speaker 1: it still was not clear how effective satellite observations were,

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Speaker 1: so scientists were tesked with developing a meteorological satellite information

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Speaker 1: system that could reliably forecast weather and help people make

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Speaker 1: important weather based decisions like disaster warnings. TYROS one, the

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Speaker 1: satellite that kicked off the Tyro's program, was the first

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Speaker 1: satellite launched for remote sensing of Earth. It's launched marked

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Speaker 1: the first time Earth scientists could continuously view the whole

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Speaker 1: planet and observe weather conditions from space. TYROS one was

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Speaker 1: designed to test the feasibility of using television pictures to

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Speaker 1: monitor Earth's cloud cover and weather patterns from satellites. It

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Speaker 1: had two TV cameras to photograph cloud cover, one with

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Speaker 1: a wide angle view and the other with a narrow

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Speaker 1: angle view. The cameras were slow scan devices that took

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Speaker 1: a snapshot once every ten seconds. Once the pictures were taken,

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Speaker 1: they were sent back to a ground receiving station or

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Speaker 1: stored in a tape recorder on board for playback later.

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Speaker 1: Depending on the location of the satellite, TYROS one wasn't

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Speaker 1: always pointed at Earth, and it could only function in daylight.

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Speaker 1: There were two Commands and Data Acquisition or c d

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Speaker 1: A stations for TYROS one, one at the Army Signal

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Speaker 1: Corps Lab in Bell mart, New Jersey, and the other

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Speaker 1: at the U. S. Air Force facility at Kinda Point, Hawaii.

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Speaker 1: In addition to these, an engineering and backup station was

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Speaker 1: at the r c A plant in Heightstown, New Jersey,

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Speaker 1: where Tyrose was built. Once the pictures were received at

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Speaker 1: the c d A station. They were recorded on thirty

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Speaker 1: five millimeter film so prints in large projections could be made.

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Speaker 1: Using the prints and projections, a hand drawn cloud analysis

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Speaker 1: called the NEF analysis was made, and then a fact

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Speaker 1: simily was sent to the U. S. Weather Bureau National

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Speaker 1: meteor Lodge Coal Center near Washington, d C. The launch

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Speaker 1: of Tyrose one was scheduled for five AM, but it

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Speaker 1: was an hour late, according to NASA administrator T. Keith Glennon.

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Speaker 1: Glennon said in the book The Birth of NASA The

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Speaker 1: Diary of T. Keith Glennon, it was a picture taken

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Speaker 1: obliquely looking westward from New Jersey towards the center of

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Speaker 1: the country, and revealed a cyclonic disturbance that was actually

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Speaker 1: in being at that time. Naturally, everybody was excited. The

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Speaker 1: first pictures taken were presented to US President Dwight D. Eisenhower,

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Speaker 1: who scolded Glennon for getting the first photo on April

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Speaker 1: fool Day. Tyros one died from an electrical failure in

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Speaker 1: mid June nineteen sixty after working for only seventy eight days,

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Speaker 1: but during its time in operation, it transmitted nineteen thousand,

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Speaker 1: three d and eighty nine pictures that were used in

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Speaker 1: weather operations and the Tyrose project continue. The initial Tyro

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Speaker 1: series ran until nineteen sixty seven, when Tyros TAN was deactivated.

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Speaker 1: After that, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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Speaker 1: launched a next generation satellite series with technological improvements like

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Speaker 1: higher resolution imaging. Now, weather satellites and meteorological observation are

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Speaker 1: far more sophisticated. I'm each STEPF. Coote, and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: Here's a note on that first TV picture from space.

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Speaker 1: So there's a picture that goes around that's commonly labeled

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Speaker 1: as the first picture, but it's not actually the first picture.

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Speaker 1: It's the one that was taken on the afternoon of

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Speaker 1: April two. That April second picture showed a fuzzy, black

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Speaker 1: and white image of Maine in Canada's maritime provinces. It's

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Speaker 1: not quite clear why this misidentification happened, but it could

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Speaker 1: be because it was selected as the best photo for

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Speaker 1: public relations and then misinterpreted by the media. If you

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Speaker 1: haven't gotten your fill of history after listening to today's episode,

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Speaker 1: you can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. At

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Speaker 1: t d i h C podcast. Thank you again for

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Speaker 1: listening and we'll see you tomorrow. For more podcasts for

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.