Chronology of Remote Sensing

1800: Discovery of Infrared by Sir William Herschel.

1826: First photographic Image taken by Joseph Nicephore Niepce.

1839: Beginning of practice of Photography.

1855: Additive Colour Theory postulated by James Clerk Maxwell.

1858: First Aerial Photograph from a balloon, taken by G. F. Tournachon.

1873: Theory of Electromagnetic Energy developed by J. C. Maxwell.

1903: Airplane invented by Wright brothers.

1909: Photography from airplanes.

1910s: Aerial Photo Reconnaissance: World War I.

1920s: Civilian use of aerial photography and Photogrammetry.

1934: American society of Photogrammetry founded.

1935: Radar invention by Robert Watson-Watt.

1939-45: Advances in Photo Reconnaissance and applications of non-visible portion of EMR: World War II.

1942: Kodak patents first false colour infrared film.

1956: Colwell’s research on diseases detection with IR photography.

1960: Term “Remote Sensing” coined by Office of Naval Research personnel

1972: ERTS-1 launched (renamed Landsat-1).

1975: ERTS-2 launched (renamed Landsat-2).

1978: Landsat-3 launched.

1980s: Development of Hyperspectral sensors.

1982: Landsat-4 TM & MSS launched.

1984: Landsat-5 TM launched.

1986: SPOT-1 launched.

1995: IRS 1C launched.

1999: Landsat-7 ETM+ launched.

1999: IKONOS launched.

1999: NASA’s Terra EOS launched.

2002: ENVISAT launched.

2003: ISRO's RESOURCESAT-1 (IRS P6) launched.

2005: ISRO's CARTOSAT-1 launched.

2007: ISRO's CARTOSAT-2 launched.