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
The Weather Channel these sites apparently have not been developed further since 2003. The Weather Channel also shares radar imagery and forecasts with The Weather Network in Canada, particularly for The Weather Channel's Canadian forecasts. Since its inception, The Weather Channel has broadcast segments providing local weather observations and forecasts generated by WeatherStar systems ("STAR" being an acronym for Satellite Transponder Addressable Receiver), proprietary computer units that are installed at the headends of individual cable providers. Until 1995, the forecast segments aired at various times each hour, but are currently shown at times ending in "8" – as such, in 1996 (although it