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 special contributor for TWC, providing segments from his frequent travels to weather-impacted locales. Later in 2011, the Intellistar 2, the first STAR unit capable of generating high definition graphics, began to be gradually rolled out to cable providers across the country. The Intellistar 2 is strictly used to generate data and graphics for the "Local on the 8s" segments seen on the high definition feed, while the first-generation Intellistar remains in use to provide weather information on The Weather Channel's standard definition feed. The Weather Channel marked the 30th anniversary of its launch in May 2012. In August 2012, former