The GOES satellites have been a critical part of NOAA’s mission to provide continuous imagery and weather data about atmospheric conditions and solar activity (space weather) since 1975. GOES satellites are owned and operated by NOAA, while NASA manages the design, build and launch of the spacecraft, and NOAA distributes the data to users.

GOES-T is the fourth satellite in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) R Series, which is being built by Lockheed Martin for NOAA. GOES-T will be renamed GOES-19 when it enters geostationary orbit, where it will sit 22,236 miles above Earth’s equator, and provides observations of the United States West Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America and parts of South America and the Pacific Ocean.

In addition to the traditional GOES sensors, GOES-T will have the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), which will deliver unprecedented views of Earth, including cloud cover, water vapor, fog, volcanic ash and sunspots. ABI can scan the whole planet every five minutes, versus 26 minutes on current GOES satellites, giving meteorologists more timely information about hazardous events like storms and hurricanes.

ABI also can capture images with twice the spatial resolution, and it can detect a wider range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. This allows GOES-T to better observe the effects of solar flares, which can interfere with communications, reduce navigational accuracy for high altitude airplanes and lower the efficiency of power grids on Earth.

As GOES-T moves closer to launch, it is undergoing a variety of environmental testing to simulate the extreme environment it will experience in space. The satellite recently completed reverberant acoustics and sine vibration tests, designed to expose the satellite to the sound and vibrations it will experience during its voyage through outer space.

Once in orbit, GOES-T will undergo an extensive system checkout and calibration. Once all of its systems are verified, the satellite will be ready to start producing real-time weather images.

GOES-T’s first full disk imagery will be produced in April, when its Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) will begin operating in a new 10-minute flex mode. The ten-minute mode will allow the satellite to produce full disk images of Contiguous US and Pacific hemisphere domains every 15 minutes, with two mesoscale images per scan, in place of the existing six-minute images of each polar region. ABI can detect and track rapidly evolving features such as smoke from fires and the movements of ice and clouds, which is critical for improving aviation safety by providing timely warnings to pilots of regions of possible turbulence. It will also provide more frequent observations of volcanic ash plumes, which can be hazardous to aircraft. The faster temporal cadence will also improve monitoring of mountainous areas where ash can accumulate and disperse. For NOAA’s National Weather Service forecast offices and Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers, this increased imagery will help them respond to and mitigate hazards for their customers.