Nearly 36 years ago, NOAA and NASA launched the first of the geostationary operational environmental satellites known as GOES. Perched 22,300 miles above the equator, GOES spacecraft have revolutionized weather monitoring by providing continuous tracking of severe storms and disruptive space weather. GOES are also a critical component of SARSAT, the satellite-aided tracking system credited with helping to save more than 25,000 lives since 1982.

This week marks yet another exciting milestone:

At 6:57 p.m. EST Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, we successfully launched GOES-P, the third and final spacecraft in the GOES-N/O/P series.  

GOES-P will be placed in orbital storage along with GOES-14 and will be renamed GOES-15 when it reaches final orbit. It will remain there until one of our operational GOES (GOES-11, 12 or 13) is retired from service.

It’s not every day that we get to watch one of our environmental satellites lift off in what is a true feat of physics and engineering. Check out the GOES-P launch video, courtesy of our partners at NASA.

GOES-P offers significant advantages over earlier series GOES spacecraft. Fitted with an enhanced imaging system, GOES-P will produce higher-definition imagery of weather patterns, such as life-threatening hurricanes and other severe storms.

Armed with higher-quality images, forecasters will be able to detect severe weather with greater precision — and greater confidence. If you’re one of the more than 35 million Americans living in hurricane-prone areas, this is especially good news!

The new satellite also comes equipped with the state-of-the-art Solar X-Ray Imager  to better forecast potentially dangerous space weather. “Solar disturbances” — e.g., solar flares and storms — can imperil space- and aircraft operations, disrupt GPS systems and satellite communications, and cause widespread power outages.

This launch is the end of an era, marking the close of a very successful series of geostationary satellites. However, the NOAA team is already hard at work on the new GOES-R series, slated for launch in 2015. These spacecraft hold the promise of even greater technological advances and monitoring capabilities. (Read more about GOES-R here.)

My thanks to all our staff from NOAA Satellites and our many partners at NASA for enabling NOAA’s reliable and ever-vigilant satellite monitoring.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator