Historic Satellites

The first satellite launched by the United States, in 1958, whose radiation detector discovered the Van Allen radiation belts. Built by JPL and launched by the U.S. Army — NASA did not yet exist.

An early U.S. technology and science satellite — the oldest human-made object still in orbit, and the first satellite to use solar cells.

The first successful weather satellite, which returned the first television images of Earth's cloud cover in 1960 and founded operational meteorology from space.

The first active communications satellite, which relayed the first transatlantic television signals in 1962.

The first commercial communications satellite in geostationary orbit, which began regular transatlantic telecommunications service in 1965.

A long-running series of Soviet communications satellites that gave their name to the Molniya orbit — a highly elliptical orbit whose slow apogee high over the northern latitudes provided the coverage that geostationary satellites could not reach at high latitudes.

The first satellite of the Landsat program, which began the longest continuous record of Earth's land surface from space.

ESA's pioneering astrometry satellite, which precisely measured the positions, distances, and motions of over 100,000 stars — the forerunner of Gaia. An apogee-motor failure left it in a highly elliptical orbit, yet it still delivered landmark astrometric catalogues.

A twin-satellite mission that mapped tiny variations in Earth's gravity field to track the movement of water, ice, and mass around the planet.

A NASA mission carrying a cloud-profiling radar that measured the vertical structure of clouds to study their role in climate.

A NASA–CNES mission using a space lidar to profile aerosols and thin clouds in Earth's atmosphere, flying in the A-Train formation.

Japan's greenhouse-gases observing satellite — the first satellite dedicated to monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane from space — operated by JAXA with Japan's National Institute for Environmental Studies.

A crowdfunded CubeSat that demonstrated controlled solar sailing in Earth orbit, raising its orbit using only the pressure of sunlight.