US space agency NASA has successfully launched NOAA’s latest next-generation weather satellite GOES-T from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
GOES-T is the third in a series of four advanced Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) to be launched by NASA on behalf of NOAA, and was blasted into orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 541 rocket at 4.38pm ET on March 1, 2022.
Mission managers confirmed that the satellite’s solar arrays have deployed and that the satellite is currently operating on its own power. After approximately two weeks, once GOES-T is positioned in a geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above the Earth, it will be renamed GOES-18. After undergoing a full checkout and validating its six high-tech instruments, the new satellite will move to the GOES-West position and replace GOES-17 in early 2023.