On November 24, 1977, ESA launched Meteosat-1, Europe's first geostationary satellite, into orbit. Meteosat-1 and successive satellites heralded a new age of weather modeling and forecasting. The data provided by the weather satellites combined with quickly increasing computing power have given meteorologists unprecedented accuracy in weather forecasting.

In 1977, the ESA was a fledgling organization, so they contracted the launch of Meteosat-1 to NASA. Meteosat-1 was launched on a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida and measured roughly 7ft. x 14ft, including the apogee bost motor. The primary instruments were a visible to infrared imaging radiometer and a data collection platform (DCP).

The imaging radiometer consisted if five multispectral bands. The visible spectrum consisted of two bands covering 0.4-1.1 microns and the infrared spectrum consisted of three bands; one band covering 5.7-7.1 microns and two covering 10.5-12.5 microns.

The DCP (1) sent radiometer data to ground stations, (2) collected data from ground stations, and (3) served as a data relay between other geostationary satellites. It had an average bitrate of 0.1bps!

ESA has come a long way since Meteosat-1 and is now a well established entity in space technology and science.