The program is managed by the United States Space Force with on-orbit operations provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

They provide cloud cover imagery from polar orbits that are Sun-synchronous at nominal altitude of 830 km (520 mi).

[2] During the 1960s, one of the most important projects that the United States civil space program was involved in dealt with meteorology and weather forecasting.

[citation needed] Now in its fifth decade of service, the DMSP program has proven itself to be a valuable tool in scheduling and protecting military operations on land, at sea, and in the air.

On 1 June 1998, the control and maintenance of the satellites were transferred to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in order to reduce costs.

[5] In 2004 the USAF weather satellite DMSP Block 5D-2 F-11 (S-12) or DMSP-11, launched in 1991 and retired in 1995, exploded in orbit with debris objects generated.

[8] On 3 February 2015, the 13th DMSP satellite — DMSP-F13 launched in 1995 — exploded while in a Sun-synchronous polar orbit leaving a debris field of at least 43 to 100 large fragments and more than 50,000 pieces smaller than 1 millimeter.

[10] The cause of the explosion was the rupturing of an onboard battery due to a design flaw (no collision with another object took place).

[11] On 11 February 2016, a power failure left both the command-and-control subsystem and its backup without the ability to reach the satellite's processor, according to the U.S. Air Force Space Command investigation released in July 2016 that also announced that DMSP 5D-3/F19 was considered to be 'lost'.

F19's planned replacement was not carried out because Congress ordered the destruction of the already constructed F20 probe to save money by not having to pay its storage costs.

[7] In January 2017, the Joint Space Operations Center announced that two non-maneuverable satellites would come dangerously close, with a collision probability as high as 44%.

[14] The operations center, which announced the possible collision, didn't identify the satellites involved but third party observers determined the most likely candidates.

The first successful launch of a Program 35 spacecraft used a Scout X-2 rocket lifting off from Point Arguello near Vandenberg Space Force Base on 23 August 1962.

The Air Force had intended to keep DMSP F20 in climate-controlled storage at a Lockheed Martin clean room in Sunnyvale, California, for a time in case it needed to be called up for launch in the coming years,[47] and in the aftermath of the failure of DMSP 5D-3/F19, the USAF was reconsidering the future of DMSP-5D3 F-20.