On March 4, A powerful Earth-observation satellite will launch into orbit, and you can watch the action live.
The GOES-T weather satellite is scheduled to lift off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today during a two-hour window that opens at 4:38 p.m. EST (2138 GMT).
You can watch the launch live directly via the space agency or at Space.com, courtesy of NASA Coverage, which will begin at 4 p.m. EST.
NASA’s Launch Services Program manages the liftoff of GOES-T, but the satellite will be operated by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration once it’s aloft.
GOES-T is the third spacecraft in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R Series, which NOAA officials describe as “the Western Hemisphere’s most sophisticated weather-observing and environmental-monitoring system.”
“The GOES-R Series provides advanced imagery and atmospheric measurements, real-time mapping of lightning activity and monitoring of space weather,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials wrote in a description of the program.
GOES-T is destined for geostationary orbit, about 22,300 miles above Earth’s surface. Once it gets there, the satellite will be renamed GOES-18. After mission managers finish checking out GOES-18’s systems and scientific instruments, it will enter service as GOES-West, replacing the GOES-17 satellite in that role. GOES-17 will become an orbiting spare.
GOES-18 will work together with GOES-16, which currently serves as GOES-East, to “watch over more than half the globe — from the west coast of Africa to New Zealand,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials wrote in a mission description.