The first true U.S. weather satellite was the Television and Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS), which had evolved in the late 1950s from concepts developed by the U.S. Army, the Rand Corporation, RCA Corporation, and Mr. Harry Wexler of the U.S. Weather Bureau. TIROS, an R&D program, was sponsored initially by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). TIROS-VIII, launched in December 1963, was the first weather satellite capable of transmitting data directly to U.S. Navy sites and other facilities, in addition to the Weather Bureau Laboratory.