Seasat (Seafaring Satellite) was launched 35 years ago on June 26, 1978, with the first civilian synthetic aperture radar (SAR) dedicated to ocean science. Unfortunately, the excitement of sending images of the ocean, ice, and Earth lasted only 100 days when Seasat abruptly stopped operation due to a power failure. Nevertheless, it ushered in the dawn of space-based remote sensing, demonstrating the feasibility of observing and researching oceanic and atmospheric processes from space.

Graber, H.C., and J. Horstmann. 2013. Introduction to the special issue on ocean remote sensing with synthetic aperture radar. Oceanography 26(2):18–19, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2013.35.

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