Satellites View The Land (continued)

Defense Meteorological Satellite Program

European night lights. The U.S. Air Force's Defense Meteorological Satellite provided this image in the visible range at night. Note the lights in Italy and the natural gas burn-off in Algeria (bottom left). Defense Meteorological Satellites provide day and night imagery in both visible and infrared wavelengths. (17k gif)
Courtesy of National Snow and Ice Data Center

Space Shuttle

Large Format Camera

Flown on the Space Shuttle in October 1984, the 1000-pound Large Format Camera provided more than 2000 black-and-white, color, and infrared photographs of the Earth's surface. From an altitude of 240 kilometers (about 150 miles) a single Large Format frame will cover more than 60,000 square kilometers (23,400 square miles) with enough resolution to distinguish buildings and roads. (19k jpg)
Full scale model on display in the Museum courtesy of Itek Corporation

Spacelab Metric Camera

Metric Camera view of the east coast of Africa. The Metric Camera was part of the European Space Agency's Spacelab experiment which flew on the ninth Space Shuttle mission. A modified version of a Zeiss aerial survey camera, it was used to acquire about 1000 black and white and color infrared photographs with a ground resolution of about 20 meters (66 feet). (43k jpg)
European Space Agency Photograph, courtesy of DLR

Rockets through
ASTP

Landsat