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Nimbus

Nimbus was NASA's second generation meteorological spacecraft following the TIROS (Television Infra Red Observation Satellite) family of weather satellites. There were seven successful Nimbus satellites built by GE for GSFC. NOAA did not use the Nimbus satellites in an operational weather system, but did use the data gathered by NASA. Nimbus was an advanced research satellite and the spacecraft design was later used in the development of the Landsat system.

Two data relay systems were used on Nimbus satellites. The Interrogation, Recording, and Location System (IRLS) flew on Nimbus 3 and 4. IRLS was used to locate and relay data from balloons and floating platforms. The Random Access Measurement System (RAMS) on Nimbus 6 provided a similar function, but without the need for interrogation.


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