CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, Fla. - Big news for the weather and space community. GOES-T, or the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite launched Tuesday afternoon. GOES-T is the third satellite in the GOES-R series.
Countdown is on: NOAA’s GOES-T satellite is scheduled to launch March 1 @ 4:38 p.m. EST from Kennedy Space Center. Stay tuned as #GOEST prepares for its journey to orbit! Follow @NOAASatellites for the latest! https://t.co/maxCOPCICR #ReadytoGOES pic.twitter.com/dNQqn63nNY
— NOAA (@NOAA) February 23, 2022
These satellites help meteorologists observe and predict local weather events like thunderstorms and hurricanes. Once GOES-T is launched, it will be renamed GOES-18. It will keep an eye on the U.S. West Coast, Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific Ocean. The satellite has six instruments. Each play an important role.
“There’s EXIS Extreme Ultraviolet/X-Ray Irradiance Sensor, it captures solar information as well. The Solar Environment In-Situ, it captures galactic protons and galactic electrons and the Magnetometer. Measures the very minute magnetic field changes that are in geostationary orbit," says GOES Deputy System Program Director, Ed Grigsby.
According to Grigsby, there’s also the Advanced Space Line Imager, which takes images for weather forecasts. The Geostationary Lightning Mapper, which captures lightning strikes. The SUVI, which is a Solar Ultraviolet Imager, and captures images of the sun.
Coverage of the launch began at 4 p.m. today. GOES-T launched aboard a rocket from Cape Canaveral at 4:38 PM EST. If you missed the launch live, you can watch it above.
.@NOAASatellites' GOES missions provide constant coverage of weather systems & critical data to help predict and track severe storms.
— NASA (@NASA) March 1, 2022
GOES-T is set for liftoff on a @ULALaunch rocket March 1 at 4:38pm ET (21:38 UTC). @NASA_LSP is managing the launch: https://t.co/c1dljD8VJN pic.twitter.com/hVyQM1qyRB
More information on the GOES Mission.
Click HERE to watch the live coverage.
