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
History of The Weather Channel that displays the applicable watches, warnings and advisories (on WeatherStar 4000 units, The Weather Channel incorporates National Weather Service bulletins in the text-based local forecast, as the 4000 does not feature the Weather Bulletins slide among its products). TWC celebrated its 20th anniversary in May 2002; in honor of the event, the channel premiered a retrospective special, as well as a book chronicling the channel's history, "The Weather Channel: The Improbable Rise of a Media Phenomenon", written by TWC founder Frank Batten and Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and published by Harvard Business Press. The first long-form programs debuted on The Weather