NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Satellite Programs Briefing

摘要

There are two types of civil operational remote-sensing satellites in use today, polar-obiting and geostationary. Two U.S. polar-obiting weather satellites monitor weather and surface conditions over the entire globe. Two U.S. geostationary weather satellites observe, respectively, the Atlantic Ocean and East and Gulf Coasts and the Pacific Ocean and West Coast. A single U.S. Earth resources satellite, called Landsat, is also in polar orbit. These United States systems are complemented by a number of foreign Earth-observing satellites, and more foreign satellites will be launched in the latter half of the 1980's.