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News</s>Any future hurricanes on the horizon might be seen earlier, thanks to a weather satellite that launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on top of an Atlas V Rocket Saturday night. The 200-foot United Alliance rocket blasted off from Launch Complex 41, fueled by four rocket boosters and over 2.2 million pounds of thrust, USA Today reports.

Forecasters and scientists are hopeful that the next-generation GOES-R satellite, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says will revolutionize weather predictions, is up to the task. The $1 billion satellite is the first of four to ascend in NOAA’s new, $11 billion Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite program.

The program currently has two satellites hovering over the Western and Eastern United States, 22,000 miles above. The NOAA is still to decide where the satellite will go, depending on weather conditions.

Upgrades to the new weather satellite include a centerpiece imaging instrument from Harris Corp. that assures advanced improvements, like better resolution that will provide movie quality images. This means pictures will contain more details and three times more data that can help in tracking weather activity and determining potentially dangerous situations.

The new technology will also give faster refresh time for almost real-time monitoring, plus views down into a hurricane’s eye so that forecasters can tell if a storm is gaining strength or losing it. The satellite imaging system will work with a new lightning mapper to identify gathering storms sooner, and allow weather authorities to save lives by getting tornado or flash flood warnings earlier.

All these features should result in more accurate landfall predictions and more efficient evacuation warnings.

GOES-R, which will be called GOES-16 once in orbit, will enter service after a year of extensive tests. A second satellite, GEOS-S, is set to launch from Cape Canaveral in 2018. In the meantime, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket is preparing to send a military communications satellite into space on December 7.</s>This photo provided by United Launch Alliance shows a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying GOES-R spacecraft for NASA and NOAA lifting off from Space Launch Complex-41 at 6:42 p.m. EST at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016. The most advanced weather satellite ever built rocketed into space Saturday night, part of an $11 billion effort to revolutionize forecasting and save lives.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The most advanced weather satellite ever built rocketed into space Saturday night, part of an $11 billion effort to revolutionize forecasting and save lives.

This new GOES-R spacecraft will track U.S. weather as never before: hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, volcanic ash clouds, wildfires, lightning storms, even solar flares. Indeed, about 50 TV meteorologists from around the country converged on the launch site — including NBC's Al Roker — along with 8,000 space program workers and guests.

"What's so exciting is that we're going to be getting more data, more often, much more detailed, higher resolution," Roker said. In the case of tornadoes, "if we can give people another 10, 15, 20 minutes, we're talking about lives being saved."

Think superhero speed and accuracy for forecasting. Super high-definition TV, versus black-and-white.

"Really a quantum leap above any satellite NOAA has ever flown," said Stephen Volz, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's director of satellites.

"For the American public, that will mean faster, more accurate weather forecasts and warnings," Volz said earlier in the week. "That also will mean more lives saved and better environmental intelligence" for government officials responsible for hurricane and other evacuations.

Airline passengers also stand to benefit, as do rocket launch teams. Improved forecasting will help pilots avoid bad weather and help rocket scientists know when to call off a launch.

NASA declared success 3 1/2 hours after liftoff, following separation from the upper stage.

The first in a series of four high-tech satellites, GOES-R hitched a ride on an unmanned Atlas V rocket, delayed an hour by rocket and other problems. NOAA teamed up with NASA for the mission.

The satellite — valued by NOAA at $1 billion — is aiming for a 22,300-mile-high equatorial orbit. There, it will join three aging spacecraft with 40-year-old technology, and become known as GOES-16. After months of testing, this newest satellite will take over for one of the older ones. The second satellite in the series will follow in 2018. All told, the series should stretch to 2036.

GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. The first was launched in 1975.

GOES-R's premier imager — one of six science instruments — will offer three times as many channels as the existing system, four times the resolution and five times the scan speed, said NOAA program director Greg Mandt. A similar imager is also flying on a Japanese weather satellite.

Typically, it will churn out full images of the Western Hemisphere every 15 minutes and the continental United States every five minutes. Specific storm regions will be updated every 30 seconds.

Forecasters will get pictures "like they've never seen before," Mandt promised.

A first-of-its-kind lightning mapper, meanwhile, will take 500 snapshots a second.

This next-generation GOES program — $11 billion in all — includes four satellites, an extensive land system of satellite dishes and other equipment, and new methods for crunching the massive, nonstop stream of expected data.

Hurricane Matthew, interestingly enough, delayed the launch by a couple weeks. As the hurricane bore down on Florida in early October, launch preps were put on hold. Matthew stayed far enough offshore to cause minimal damage to Cape Canaveral, despite some early forecasts that suggested a direct strike.</s>(CNN) It doesn't matter where you get your weather forecast. With the newest weather satellite in orbit, prediction models will probably improve overnight.

The GOES-R satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral on Saturday afternoon atop an Atlas V 541 rocket. It's the first of three satellites being built to replace the aging United States weather satellite system.

Once the satellite reaches orbit, it will change names from GOES-R to GOES-16 and become the 16th geostationary weather satellite in US history.

"This spacecraft will impact 300 million people a day," said Tim Gasparrini, the GOES-R project manager and employee of Lockheed Martin, which assembled the satellite. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are leading the effort.

Ever watched an old standard-definition video on a high-definition TV? Current weather models are in a similar situation: We have improved HD weather models, but we are still shooting with an SD camera.

The first geostationary weather satellite images were "grainy, very low-resolution; they are going to be absolutely nothing like the images you are going to be seeing off of GOES-R," Gasparrini said.

With these improved detailed pictures and measurements of the atmosphere, the forecast models will have more precise data. This will not only help scientists with a day-to-day forecast, but it will help with tracking severe storms and creating better hurricane forecast tracks.

GOES-R will be able to capture all the details of US weather in the same time it takes the current GOES satellites to produce one small image of a stormy region.

With the current series of satellites, images of Earth are taken every 30 minutes, and the United States is scanned every 15 minutes. During a period of active weather, the satellites are placed in a position to scan one region every five minutes. Unfortunately, none of this can happen at the same time, and the period between scans leaves out valuable information for weather forecasters.

GOES-R imaging capabilities are much faster and broader, capturing an entire full-disk image of the Earth (in ultra high definition) every five minutes.

This near-real-time imagery, as well as a new lightning mapper to highlight strikes, will help meteorologists see which storms are strengthening or weakening, improving lead times for warnings of severe storms. (Data will be available to the public on a NOAA web site.)

Currently, the average lead time for tornado warnings is 13 minutes, but with the launch of GOES-R, meteorologists believe that could improve with a significantly longer lead time. They hope to give people more time to take cover from tornadoes, flash floods and even dust storms. It also means there could be fewer "false warnings," when warnings are issued but no tornado occurs.

More than just pictures

GOES-R will be able to measure cloud thickness and atmospheric moisture, track lightning and even monitor dangerous levels of air pollution.

The satellite will monitor the "weather" of outer space. It will capture more advanced images of the sun and will be able to take other crucial measurements of space weather that could threaten Earth, disable communication systems, interrupt power utilities and even disrupt our navigation systems.

NASA and NOAA will do six months of tests to prepare the satellite for everyday operation. Once it is operational, all meteorologists and scientists will be able to access all of its data. And most believe that weather forecasts will improve almost immediately after testing is complete.

Billions of dollars, years of tedious tinkering and calculation, and a lot of hard work could literally go up in smoke. The Atlas V rocket has a great track record, but of course anything could go wrong. And if the solar array doesn't extend like scientists expect, the satellite might never reach the right location.

Anyone who got near the satellite during its construction had to wear a special suit. There was a rule of thumb for those working on it, especially near the sensors: "One fingerprint a meter away from an instrument can contaminate it such that it can't meet its requirements," Gasparrini said.

The financial consequences are obvious. However, a system failure could bring other issues. The current series of GOES satellites are outdated and may have operational issues at any moment, proving detrimental to the forecasting capabilities of the National Weather Service and local forecasters. They would have to rely on smaller satellites that may not give a broad and accurate range of data in such a fast turnaround.

Fortunately, there is a backup satellite (GOES-S), but even that would take months (if not years) to be made operational.

Although basic at first, weather satellites have been pivotal in keeping an eye on our weather since 1960, with the launch of Tiros-1. This polar orbiting satellite -- which circles the Earth rather than remaining in one place -- was rudimentary by today's standards, with two television cameras that took pictures of different location on earth for 78 days. Even though the images beamed back to Earth were basic, they were vital for the improvement of weather observations and forecasts worldwide.

The GOES network has been monitoring the Earth's atmosphere since the mid-1970s.

Unlike polar-orbiting satellites, GOES craft -- the name is an acronym for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite -- were sent into space to monitor the United States continually.

"Geostationary" means the satellite rotates at the same speed as the Earth, in this case hovering 22,300 miles above the equator. This "geosynchronous orbit" means it remains stationary in relation to a fixed point on the Earth's surface.

Scientists believe that failing to upgrade the United States' weather satellites will leave the nation vulnerable in a time when storms are getting stronger.

Billion-dollar disasters are on the rise, and the need for updated weather technology is critical. Not only will GOES-R provide forecasters better tools for predicting disastrous weather events, but everyone will have better information on a day-to-day basis that can benefit our health and well-being.

Human-induced climate change has been on the forefront of research over the past few decades. The planet has been warming at alarming rates, but direct physical measurements can't be taken from every location on Earth.

GOES-R will help alleviate this issue, while the data it collects are ingested into long-term climate modeling to identify how climate change will influence our lives.</s>The detailed view provided by the satellite is expected to sharpen hurricane forecasts, provide more advanced warning of floods and better tracking of wildfires, plumes and volcanic ash clouds.

Scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 5:42 p.m. EST, the GOES-R satellite is capable of taking a complete picture of the hemisphere every five minutes while simultaneously zooming in on fires, volcanic eruptions or severe rain in specific regions.

The satellite, the 17th in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) series, is the first to be launched since 2010. It is a step up from its predecessors, which take 30 minutes to image the hemisphere and are not capable of carrying out multiple tasks at the same time.

“This is a quantum leap,” Sandra Cauffman, deputy director of Earth Sciences at NASA, said at a news conference on Thursday. "It will truly revolutionize weather forecasting.”

The satellite rests on top of an Atlas 5 rocket developed by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co..

The heart of the new satellite is a high-resolution camera, designed and built by Exelis Inc, a subsidiary of Harris Corp.. It can see in 16 wavelengths, compared with the five available with the current system.

GOES-R, developed by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has four times better resolution and can take images five times faster than its predecessors, NOAA program scientist Steven Goodman said.

The satellite's capabilities go beyond weather forecasting. The sharper view will enable forecasters to see waves in clouds, for example, so that pilots can avoid turbulence and give airline passengers smoother rides.

GOES-R, built by Lockheed, includes the first operational lightning mapper, which will image lightning fields in the western hemisphere 200 times a second, NOAA said.

GOES-R is the first of four satellites in a system upgrade that will cost $11 billion, including launch fees, said NOAA Assistant Administrator Stephen Volz. The next satellite is slated for launch in 2018.

GOES, along with a second, polar-orbiting weather satellite network operated by NOAA, has faced cost overruns and program delays due to technical issues and mismanagement, according to a December 2015 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.

Once in orbit, the new satellite will undergo about 11 months of testing before it joins the operational fleet, which now numbers three units, NOAA said.</s>WASHINGTON: A “next generation” US weather satellite that was rocketed into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 6:42 p.m. EST on Saturday (5.12 a.m. Sunday, India time) is on its way to sharpen forecasts, watches and warnings about hurricanes and storms, NASA said.

After the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R), reaches its final designated orbit in the next two weeks, it will be renamed GOES-16, the US space agency said in a statement.

“The launch of GOES-R represents a major step forward in terms of our ability to provide more timely and accurate information that is critical for life-saving weather forecasts and warnings,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

“It also continues a decades-long partnership between NASA and NOAA to successfully build and launch geostationary environmental satellites,” Zurbuchen added.

The new satellite will become operational within a year, after undergoing a checkout and validation of its six new instruments, including the first operational lightning mapper in geostationary orbit.

“The next generation of weather satellites is finally here,” NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan said.

Forecasters will use the lightning mapper to hone in on storms that represent the greatest threats. The satellite’s primary instrument, the Advanced Baseline Imager, will provide images of Earth’s weather, oceans and environment with 16 different spectral bands, including two visible channels, four near-infrared channels, and 10 infrared channels.

Improved space weather sensors on GOES-R will monitor the sun and relay crucial information to forecasters so they can issue space weather alerts and warnings.

In all, data from GOES-R will result in 34 new or improved meteorological, solar and space weather products, NASA said.
An Atlas V rocket launches the GOES-R geosynchronous environmental satellite that will cover the Western Hemisphere for weather forecasting.