Best weather satellite ever built rockets toward orbit

Airline passengers also stand to benefit, as do rocket launch teams, as improved forecasting assists pilots in avoiding bad weather and helps rocket scientists know when to call off a launch.

GOES-R is heading to a geostationary orbit, meaning it will orbit at the same speed as the earth, allowing it to focus on one spot, all the time. NOAA (NO-ah) expects it to revolutionize forecasting.

An Atlas V rocket launched by United Launch Alliance sent the GOES-R satellite to orbit Saturday, providing crucial weather forecasting images of earth’s western hemisphere.

It’s taking forecasters from black and white TV to high-definition.

The satellite is the first of four in the GOES-R series (-R, -S, -T and -U) that will launch through 2036. “GOES-R’s instruments will be capable of scanning the planet five times faster and with four times more resolution than any other satellite in our fleet”.

The satellite will aim for a 22,300-mile-high orbit, where it will churn out the sharpest and fastest pictures yet of hurricanes, tornadoes and other us weather.

“We’re talking about lives being saved”, he said.

GOES-R will observe thunderstorms, tornadoes, fog, floods, and even volcanic eruptions.

After it achieves its last assigned orbit in the following two weeks, GOES-R will be renamed GOES-16.

GOES-R satellites will be in a geostationary orbit 22,500 miles above the Earth, always looking down and monitoring the USA and western hemisphere. “I think it’s going to make a big difference”. This means pictures will contain more details and three times more data that can help in tracking weather activity and determining potentially unsafe situations.

GOES-R will scan the skies five times faster than today’s GOES spacecraft, with four times greater image resolution and three times the spectral channels.

Already, a group of GOES or Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is in orbit and delivering objective observations of the Western Hemisphere. The satellite is also equipped with the world’s first lighting mapper which will image lighting fields in the same designated region as often as 200 times per second.

“The next generation of weather satellites is finally here”, said NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan.

“Forecasters will have far more detailed views of weather systems”, said Joe Pica, a senior manager with the National Weather Service.

GOES-16 should also increase the accuracy of forecasts in the space-weather realm, Mandt added. It will take that long for the satellite to provide useful information to us down here on Earth.

All of this information should give researchers a heads up about solar storms that could affect satellite navigation, power grids and other infrastructure, NOAA officials have said.

Once the satellite reaches orbit, it will change names from GOES-R to GOES-16 and become the 16th geostationary weather satellite in USA history.

GOES-16 is created to operate for 10 years, though it has enough fuel on board to last for 18 years, Volz said.

The launch was previously scheduled for mid-October, but it was delayed by Hurricane Matthew. As of 8:30 a.m. Saturday, weather was 90 percent “go”, according to the Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron.

GOES-R will eventually be included in our on-air weather graphics, but not for quite a few months.

Tim Gasparrini discusses the new GOES satellites while standing in front of the nearly completed GOES-S.