Month: November 2016

Launch Team Practices Countdown for GOES-R Liftoff

NASA, NOAA and United Launch Alliance controllers and engineers conducted a full dress rehearsal Monday for the launch of the GOES-R spacecraft later this week. The practice is standard for the launch team as it prepares for a mission. Working from consoles in facilities at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the teams ran through the same systems and processes they will use for the actual launch, which is set for Saturday at 5:42 p.m. EST. The launch window extends until 6:42 p.m. The weather forecast for Saturday calls for an 80 percent chance of acceptable conditions for launch.

The practice kicks off launch week which will include numerous activities leading up to the rollout of the Atlas V rocket to the pad at Space Launch Complex 41 and then to the launch itself. The GOES-R spacecraft, to be operated by NOAA once in orbit, will be the most advanced satellite of its kind. Equipped with specialized sensors, GOES-R will give forecasters better data, faster. That information will be used to enhance computer models and help meteorologists ultimately produce more sophisticated weather forecasts. For six reasons GOES-R matters, click here.  Photo credit: NASA/Dan Casper

 

GOES-R Set to Lift Off Nov. 19

Team members with United Launch Alliance (ULA) prepare the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) for encapsulation in the payload fairing inside the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida near NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
Team members with United Launch Alliance (ULA) prepare the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) for encapsulation in the payload fairing inside the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. GOES-R will be the first satellite in a series of next-generation NOAA GOES Satellites. The spacecraft is to launch aboard a ULA Atlas V rocket in November. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

An Atlas V rocket is set to lift off Nov. 19 at 5:42 p.m. EST to deliver NOAA’s latest-generation weather satellite, GOES-R, into orbit. NASA is conducting the launch through its Launch Services Program. United Launch Alliance engineers are processing the rocket at Space Launch Complex 41 ahead of launch. After several months of processing at Astrotech in Titusville, Florida, the GOES-R spacecraft has been encapsulated inside a payload fairing for protection during the climb through Earth’s atmosphere on the way to orbit. Carrying the most advanced sensors of their kind, the GOES-R spacecraft will fly more than 22,000 miles above Earth where it will offer weather forecasters an unblinking eye on conditions on the planet below.