The Missile and Space Division of the General Electric Company, under contract to NASA, is responsible for the following aspects of the NIMBUS Programme:

1. Integration and test of the sensor ring and the power and attitude control housing;

2. Design, fabrication and test of vehicle structure;

3. Design, fabrication and test of thermo-control, wiring harness, paddle unfold, and spacecraft separation sub-systems;

4. Ground station operations and maintenance at Valley Forge, Pa;

5. Technical support at the launch site;

6. Spacecraft operations at Goddard Space Flight Center during orbit;

7. Systems definition study for NIMBUS E and F.

Interest in meteorological research by means of artificial earth satellites began in the United States during the period of the IGY (1956-58) when two US experimenters, W. Stroud and V. Suomi, respectively developed experiments for elementary cloud photography and infra-red energy balance measurements to be orbited in IGY satellites.