Members of the news media had an opportunity for an up-close look at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U (GOES-U) on Thursday, June 6, 2024, inside the Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Kim ShiflettThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geostationary Operation Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) stands vertical on a spacecraft dolly in a high bay at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, June 6, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
NASA hosted members of the media to view the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite U (GOES-U), on June 6, at the Astrotech Space Operations facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Subject matter experts from NASA, NOAA, Lockheed Martin, and L3Harris Technologies provided a mission overview and answered questions about the satellite’s capabilities to assist meteorologists with predicting, observing, and tracking hazardous weather events on Earth and in space.
The opportunity provided media with a last look at the final weather-observing and environmental monitoring satellite in NOAA’s GOES-R Series before technicians prepare it for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
The satellite will carry a suite of instruments for advanced imagery, atmospheric measurements, real-time mapping of lightning activity, and detecting approaching space weather hazards. The satellite also includes a new compact coronagraph that will image the outer layer of the Sun’s atmosphere to detect and characterize coronal mass ejections.
The two-hour launch window for GOES-U opens at 5:16 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, June 25, from Launch Complex 39A at the Florida spaceport.
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is lifted at the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on May 4, 2022. Photo credit: NASA/Frank MichauxFollowing a review of the International Space Station operations, NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test now is targeting no earlier than Monday, May 6, for Starliner’s first launch with astronauts to the orbital complex. The date adjustment optimizes space station schedule of activities planned toward the end of April, including a cargo spacecraft undocking and a crew spacecraft port relocation required for Starliner docking. NASA and Boeing also are performing prelaunch closeout work and completing final certification for flight.
Starliner will carry NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the space station for a docking to the forward port of the Harmony module. Ahead of Starliner’s launch, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 crewmates will board the Dragon spacecraft, currently docked to the forward port, for a relocation to the zenith port of Harmony to allow for Starliner docking. The date shift also allows additional time for the crew aboard the microgravity laboratory to complete science and cargo logistics ahead of the departure of the Dragon cargo spacecraft.
As part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, Starliner will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Williams and Wilmore will spend about a week docked to the space station ahead of a return to Earth in the western United States. The flight test will help NASA verify whether the Starliner system is ready to fly regular crew rotation missions to space station for the agency.
NASA and SpaceX now are targeting Tuesday, June 25, for the launch of GOES-U, the fourth and final satellite in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) – R Series. The new launch date allowed time for teams to fully repair and test the Falcon Heavy core booster after a liquid oxygen leak was identified during routine new booster testing in February. NASA and SpaceX teams have resumed preparation of the GOES-U launch. GOES-U will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NOAA oversees the GOES-R Series Program through an integrated NOAA-NASA office, managing the ground system, operating the satellites, and distributing their data to users worldwide. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the acquisition of the spacecraft and instruments and also built the Magnetometer instrument for GOES-T and GOES-U. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center manages the launch services for the GOES missions. Lockheed Martin designs, builds, and tests the GOES-R series satellites. L3Harris Technologies provides the primary instrument, the Advanced Baseline Imager, along with the ground system, which includes the antenna system for data reception.
Technicians examine the first of two fully extended five-panel solar arrays built for NASA’s Europa Clipper suspended on a support system called a gravity offload fixture during inspection and cleaning as part of assembly, test, and launch operations inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky
Processing of the large solar arrays built for NASA’s Europa Clipper is now underway inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Planned to arrive at Jupiter in April 2030, the spacecraft will study Jupiter’s moon Europa, which shows strong evidence beneath its icy crust of a global ocean over twice the volume of all Earth’s oceans. Europa is currently considered one of the most promising habitable environments in our solar system.
The first of two five-panel solar arrays built for NASA’s Europa Clipper stands inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for inspection and cleaning as part of assembly, test, and launch operations on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky
Once processing of the first five-panel solar array is complete, technicians will remove it from the gravity offload fixture, which helps support the weight of the array. The same steps will then be repeated with the second solar array. Built by Airbus in Leiden, Netherlands, the arrays arrived at Kennedy late last month by truck, after travelling to the U.S. by air.
When both solar arrays are installed and deployed on Europa Clipper – the agency’s largest spacecraft ever developed for a planetary mission – the spacecraft will span a total length of more than 100 feet and weigh 7,145 pounds without the inclusion of propellants. The spacecraft needs the large solar arrays to collect enough light to power it as it operates in the Jupiter system, which is more than five times as far from the Sun as Earth.
Europa Clipper is being assembled at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and is managed in partnership with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The spacecraft will ship to Florida later this year for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy’s Launch Complex 39A. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, is managing the launch service.
Join the conversation and get Europa Clipper mission updates from these accounts:
Technicians monitor movement and guide NOAA’s Geostationary Operation Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) as a crane hoists it on to a spacecraft dolly in a high bay at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky
NASA and SpaceX are now targeting no earlier than May 2024 for the launch of the fourth and final satellite in NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) – R Series, GOES-U. The new date allows for additional testing and preparation of a new Falcon Heavy center core booster after a liquid oxygen leak was discovered during routine new booster testing.
NOAA oversees the GOES-R Series Program through an integrated NOAA-NASA office, managing the ground system, operating the satellites, and distributing their data to users worldwide. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the acquisition of the spacecraft and instruments and also built the Magnetometer instrument for GOES-T and GOES-U. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center manages the launch services for the GOES missions. Lockheed Martin designs, builds, and tests the GOES-R series satellites. L3Harris Technologies provides the primary instrument, the Advanced Baseline Imager, along with the ground system, which includes the antenna system for data reception.
Technicians begin to retract one of the two solar arrays attached to NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. This photo was taken on July 25 inside the Astrotech Space Operations facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has completed another milestone. Solar arrays are now ready to power the spacecraft on a 2.5-billion-mile (4-billion-kilometer) journey to a metal-rich asteroid to help us learn more about planet formation. A team of engineers and technicians received, prepared, and installed the solar arrays on the spacecraft at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
