‘Best weather satellite ever built’ rockets into space

GOES-R even has a lightning mapper on board, meant to help forecasters know which storms are more severe than others.

NASA launched the $1 billion satellite Saturday night for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The program flies two satellites over the Eastern and Western United States, in an orbit more than 22,000 miles above the equator. The latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, which will be named GOES 16 once it’s deployed in space, will have the capability to monitor weather in near real time.

Beyond observing the weather GOES-R will also form part of the Search and Rescue Satellite Aided Tracking system.

“This new four-satellite GOES series is really a quantum leap above any satellite NOAA has ever flown”, he said. The new weather satellite would be more accurate in giving weather forecasts as well as issuing warnings for severe weather for North America.

Beyond weather forecasting, GOES-R will be part of SARSAT, an worldwide satellite-based search and rescue network.

GOES-R promises to bring major improvements in collection of weather data and improvements to the field of weather forecasting.

“In terms of increased quality, the images from GOES-R have been described as going from standard definition TV to high definition TV”.

The next-generation satellite will help to predict not only the weather on Earth, but also the weather in space.

A geosynchronous orbit is simply an orbit that keeps the satellite over a specific location on the Earth.

One of the most beneficial applications that GOES-R will be used for is forecasting for tropical systems in the Atlantic Ocean.

“This is a very exciting time”, Greg Mandt, the NOAA GOES-R program manager, said in a press conference.

Three-and-a-half hours later, the GOES-R spacecraft segregated from the Centaur and the satellite started flying on its own to the planned orbit. As of Thursday, the weather was given the launch a 90-percent “go”. That will give us a better view of clouds, fire, smoke, aerosols, volcanic ash, and much more.

The next mission from Cape Canaveral is targeted for December 7, with a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket preparing to launch a military communications satellite.

Meteorologists gather information from two main sources: weather satellites and flying planes through storms.