This collection contains over 73,000 print photographs and negatives of images taken by the Spin-scan Cloud Camera that flew on the Applications Technology Satellite (ATS) I and III in 1966 and 1967, respectively. The Spin-scan Camera was the invention of Verner Suomi and Robert Parent. This project was housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) Satellite Data Service. The collection represents a unique full photographic record of the data created by ATS I and III.
The images in this collection represent the first large scale and frequent observations of weather phenomena over a large fraction of the Earth's surface. This data became a key building block for atmospheric modeling and furthered the accuracy of weather prediction.
The images in the collection were created between 1966 and 1974, meaning that they pre-date the operations of the Synchronous Meteorological Satellites that were launched after 1974. This represents some of the foundational work in satellite meteorology and an important part of the history of the SSEC.
