In 1960, the first meteorological satellite, Tiros (the predecessor of NOAA), was launched. Tiros was the first in a whole series of satellites which signified a major advance in weather forecasting and in research on weather systems such as tropical storms.

Today, seven geostationary meteorological satellites working together provide almost continuous images of the entire world. They are supported by a number of polar satellites, each of which supply less frequent but more detailed (higher resolution) images of a specific area.

Along with meteorological applications, the data from meteorological satellites are used in scores of other derivative areas: for climatological research (such as climate change), oceanographic applications (measuring surface temperatures in connection with El Niño, ice monitoring, etc.) and applications on land (NOAA is especially well-suited for studying vegetation, forest fires, etc.).