NASA has successfully launched the fourth and final satellite in a series of advanced weather satellites for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at 7:26 a.m. AEST on June 26, 2024.
The satellite launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mission managers confirmed five hours after lift-off that the spacecraft’s solar arrays deployed, and the spacecraft was operating on its own power.
The GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) will provide continuous coverage of weather and hazardous environmental conditions across much of the Western Hemisphere.
“As communities across the country and the world feel the effects of extreme weather, satellites like GOES-U keep a close watch to monitor weather in real-time,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA and NOAA have worked together for several decades to bring critical data back down to Earth to prepare for severe storms, fire detection, and much more. This fleet of advanced satellites is strengthening resilience to our changing climate and protecting us from weather hazards on Earth and in space.”
In addition to its critical role in terrestrial weather prediction, the GOES constellation of satellites helps forecasters predict space weather near Earth that can interfere with satellite electronics, GPS, and radio communications. The GOES-U satellite extends the capabilities of its predecessors with a new space weather instrument, the Compact Coronograph-1, which blocks the Sun’s bright light so scientists can observe the relatively fainter solar atmosphere.
Once GOES-U is in a geostationary orbit, about 22,200 miles above Earth, it will be renamed GOES-19. Following a successful orbital checkout of its instruments and systems, GOES-19 will go into service, keeping watch of the weather over most of North America, including the contiguous United States and Mexico, as well as Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west coast of Africa.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland oversaw the acquisition of the GOES-R series spacecraft and instruments and built the magnetometer for GOES-U and its predecessor, GOES-T. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, provided launch management for the mission.
The GOES-R Series Program is overseen by NOAA, through an integrated NOAA-NASA office that manages the ground system, operates the satellites, and distributes data to users worldwide. Lockheed Martin designs, builds, and tests the GOES-R series satellites. L3Harris Technologies provides the main instrument payload, the Advanced Baseline Imager and the ground system, which includes the antenna system for data reception.
