December 6th, 2006 represents an historic day for the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Forty years ago, NASA launched the Applications Technology Satellite-I (ATS-I) at Cape Canaveral, carrying as its payload, the Spin-Scan Camera. The camera, one of Verner Suomi’s “gadgets”, started a revolution in satellite meteorology felt around the globe. And appropriately, by some sort of cosmic coincidence, this event occurred on Vern’s 51st birthday.