Weather satellite of rotation and its elliptical orbit kept it from collecting a notable amount of useful data. The Explorer VI and VII satellites also contained weather-related experiments. The first weather satellite to be considered a success was TIROS-1, launched by NASA on April 1, 1960. TIROS operated for 78 days and proved to be much more successful than Vanguard 2. TIROS paved the way for the Nimbus program, whose technology and findings are the heritage of most of the Earth-observing satellites NASA and NOAA have launched since then. Beginning with the Nimbus 3 satellite in 1969, temperature information through the tropospheric
XM Satellite Radio was included with XM Radio subscriptions, or was available separately for $7.99/month to Internet-only subscribers. XM also provided data services such as weather information for pilots and weather spotters through its Sirius XM Weather & Emergency datacasting service. This up to the minute weather information could be displayed in the cockpit of an aircraft equipped with a satellite weather receiver. Unlike weather radar, which relies on the aircraft's own equipment, the satellite service could give a pilot information about weather anywhere in USA and Canada. The downside is that the various weather streams (radar, cloud coverage, lightning, forecast, TAF, FA,