Alouette 1 is a deactivated Canadian satellite that studied the ionosphere. Launched in 1962, it was Canada's first satellite, and the first satellite constructed by a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States. Canada was the fourth country to operate a satellite, as the British Ariel 1, constructed in the United States by NASA, preceded Alouette 1 by five months. The name "Alouette" came from the French for "skylark" and the French-Canadian folk song of the same name.
A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite with a form factor of 10 cm (3.9 in) cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than 2 kg (4.4 lb) per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats are put into orbit by deployers on the International Space Station, or launched as secondary payloads on a launch vehicle. As of August 2021, more than 1,600 CubeSats have been launched.
Project Echo was the first passive communications satellite experiment. Each of the two American spacecraft, launched in 1960 and 1964, were metalized balloon satellites acting as passive reflectors of microwave signals. Communication signals were transmitted from one location on Earth and bounced off the surface of the satellite to another Earth location.
Explorer 49 was a NASA 328 kg (723 lb) satellite launched on 10 June 1973, for long wave radio astronomy research. It had four 230 m (750 ft) X-shaped antenna elements, which made it one of the largest spacecraft ever built.
The Lincoln Experimental Satellite series was designed and built by Lincoln Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 1965 and 1976, under USAF sponsorship, for testing devices and techniques for satellite communication.
Applications Technology Satellite 3, or ATS-3, was a long-lived American experimental geostationary weather and communications satellite, operated by NASA from 1967 to 2001. It was at one time reputed to be the oldest satellite still in operation. As of 1995, NASA referred to the ATS-3 as "The oldest active communications satellite by a wide margin."
The Intelsat VI series of satellites were the 8th generation of geostationary communications satellites for the Intelsat Corporation. Designed and built by Hughes Aircraft Company (HAC) in 1983-1991, there were five VI-series satellites built: 601, 602, 603, 604, and 605.
Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) is a NASA environmental monitoring satellite that measures soil moisture across the planet. It is designed to collect a global 'snapshot' of soil moisture every 2 to 3 days. With this frequency, changes from specific storms can be measured while also assessing impacts across seasons of the year. SMAP was launched on 31 January 2015. It was one of the first Earth observation satellites developed by NASA in response to the National Research Council's Decadal Survey.
GOES-8, known as GOES-I before becoming operational, was an American weather satellite, which formed part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system. It was launched in 1994, and operated until 2004 when it was retired and boosted to a graveyard orbit. At launch, the satellite had a mass of 2,105 kilograms (4,641 lb), and an expected operational lifespan of three or five years. It was built by Space Systems/Loral, based on the LS-1300 satellite bus, and was the first of five GOES-I series satellites to be launched.
GOES-4, known as GOES-D before becoming operational, was a geostationary weather satellite which was operated by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as part of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system. Launched in 1980, it was used for weather forecasting in the United States, and later in Europe. Following its retirement it became the first satellite to be sent into a graveyard orbit.
STSat-2B, or Science and Technology Satellite-2B, was a South Korean satellite which was lost in the failure of the second flight of the Naro-1 launch vehicle. It was to have been operated by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), and was intended to demonstrate technology for future spacecraft. The satellite had a mass of 100 kg (220 lb), and was expected to operate for at least two years.
Discoverer 20, also known as KH-5 9014A, was a USAF photographic reconnaissance satellite under the supervision of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) which was launched in 1961. Discoverer 20 was the first KH-5 ARGON satellite to be launched.
Progress M-09M, identified by NASA as Progress 41P, is a Progress spacecraft which was launched in 2011 to resupply the International Space Station. It was the ninth Progress-M 11F615A60 spacecraft to be launched, and has the serial number 409. The spacecraft was manufactured by RKK Energia, and is operated by the Russian Federal Space Agency. It arrived at the space station during Expedition 26, and undocked during Expedition 27.
Space Infrastructure Servicing (SIS) is a spacecraft concept being developed by Canadian aerospace firm MDA to operate as a small-scale in-space refueling depot for communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
ATS-1 was an experimental geostationary satellite, launched in 1966. Though intended as a communications satellite rather than as a weather satellite, it carried the Spin Scan Cloud Camera developed by Verner E. Suomi and Robert Parent at the University of Wisconsin. After entering an orbit at 23,000 mi (37,000 km) above Earth, initially in orbit over Ecuador, it transmitted weather images from the Western Hemisphere, as well as other data, to ground stations, including well as video feeds for television broadcasting. It took one of the first pictures of the Earth's full-disk, on December 11, 1966.
"For the first time," historians would note later, "rapid-imaging of nearly an entire hemisphere was possible. We could watch, fascinated, as storm systems developed and moved and were captured in a time series of images. Today such images are an indispensable part of weather analysis and forecasting."
INSAT-1A was an Indian communications satellite which formed part of the Indian National Satellite System. Launched in 1982, it was operated in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 74° east. Following a series of failures, the satellite was abandoned in September 1982, less than six months into a seven-year mission.
Horizons-1, also known as Galaxy 13, is a geostationary communications satellite operated by Intelsat and SKY Perfect JSAT (JSAT) which was designed and manufactured by Boeing on the BSS-601 platform. It has Ku-band and C-band payload and was used to replace Galaxy 9 at the 127.0° West longitude. It covers North America, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii and Mexico.
SBS 6 was a geostationary communications satellite designed and manufactured by Hughes on the HS-393 platform. It was originally ordered by Satellite Business Systems, which later sold it to Hughes Communications and was last used by Intelsat. It had a Ku band payload and operated on the 95°W longitude.
Explorer 38 was the first NASA satellite to study Radio astronomy. Explorer 38 was launched as part of the Explorer program, being the first of the 2 RAE-satellites. Explorer 38 was launched on 4 July 1968 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, with a Delta J launch vehicle.
Eni G. Njoku is a Nigerian-American scientist specializing in microwave remote sensing. He worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, where he was responsible for developing techniques for sea surface temperature and soil moisture remote sensing using microwave radiometers. He produced the first microwave-derived sea surface temperature maps from space, and developed the first application of deployable mesh antennas for satellite Earth observation. From 2008-2013, he served as project scientist of NASA's first soil moisture mission, the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, launched in 2015.
