Thirty-five years ago today — May 17, 1974 — a Delta rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying SMS-1, the Synchronous Meteorological Satellite-1. It was a weather satellite prototype, the first in geosynchronous orbit.
Thought you ought to know.
If you want to know more, here’s the NASA catalog description of SMS-1, and here’s a page about the history of satellite meteorology.
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