Verner E. Suomi was the father of satellite meteorology. He invented the Spin Scan Radiometer, which for many years was the instrument on the GOES

Goes

Goes is a municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands in Zuid-Beveland, in the province Zeeland. The city of Goes has approximately 27,000 residents.-History of Goes:...

 weather satellites that generated the time sequences of cloud images seen on television weather shows.

Together with Robert Parent, in 1965 Suomi founded the Space Science and Engineering Center

Space Science and Engineering Center

The Space Science and Engineering Center is a research and development center with primary focus on geophysical research and technology to enhance understanding of the atmosphere of Earth, the other planets in our Solar System, and the cosmos...

 (SSEC) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

University of Wisconsin–Madison

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

. From this came the first satellite to provide weather satellite

Weather satellite

The weather satellite is a type of satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be either polar orbiting, seeing the same swath of the Earth every 12 hours, or geostationary, hovering over the same spot on Earth by orbiting over the equator while...

 imagery from a geostationary orbit

Geostationary orbit

A geostationary orbit is a geosynchronous orbit directly above the Earth's equator , with a period equal to the Earth's rotational period and an orbital eccentricity of approximately zero. An object in a geostationary orbit appears motionless, at a fixed position in the sky, to ground observers...

 was the Applications Technology Satellite (ATS-1), launched on 6 December 1966, that included a Spin Scan Radiometer.

Suomi led the development of McIDAS

McIDAS

McIDAS, the "Man computer Interactive Data Access System", is a pioneering weather forecasting tool developed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the 1970s and used continually to this day. In its early incarnations it was widely used to generate graphics for television stations, but today is...

 (Man-computer Interactive Data Access System) in 1972, displaying the images produced by his satellites such as SMS-1 in 1974 (see link below).

Suomi was elected to the National Academy of Engineering

National Academy of Engineering

The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...

 in 1966, awarded the National Medal of Science

National Medal of Science

The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...

 in 1977, awarded the Franklin Medal

Franklin Medal

The Franklin Medal was a science and engineering award presented by the Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia, PA, USA.-Laureates:*1915 - Thomas Alva Edison *1915 - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes *1916 - John J...

 in 1984, and received numerous other awards and honors.

External links

• The Space Science and Engineering Center
• Russell Hall's memoir of Verner Suomi
• NASA ATS-1 (1966) page - NSSDC ID: 1966-110A
• NASA SMS-1 (1974) page - NSSDC ID: 1974-033A-01 - explanation of Visible Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer