NOAA

NOAA

NOAA

NOAA

NOAA

NOA

NOAA

NOAA

NOAA

NOAA

In November, the most expensive and advanced weather satellite ever built in the United States launched, and it then spent several weeks reaching a geosynchronous orbit nearly 36,000km from Earth. After some initial diagnostics, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration turned the GOES-16 satellite (GOES stands for "Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite") on and began taking photos of Earth.

On Monday, the agency released the first images taken by GOES-16—and do they ever deliver the goods. "These images come from the most sophisticated technology ever flown in space to predict severe weather on Earth," said Stephen Volz, director of NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service. "The fantastically rich images provide us with our first glimpse of the impact GOES-16 will have on developing life-saving forecasts.” The satellite will continue to undergo testing during the next several months before becoming full operational in November.

This is the first of four spacecraft in NOAA's GOES-R series, and the spacecraft are estimated to cost about $11 billion through 2035. The satellite will have three times the number of data channels as its most immediate predecessor, the GOES 15 that was launched in 2010. The GOES-R improves every current GOES satellite product, while adding new information about lightning, smoke, fires, and volcanic ash, among other variables. The additional data should improve both real-time forecasting of severe weather events, as well as improve data ingested by global computer models that provide the basic output for 5- and 10-day forecasts.

The satellite's primary camera, the Advanced Baseline Imager, produced the images released Monday. It can view the Earth with 16 different spectral bands, compared to five on the current generation of GOES satellites. The camera has a resolution of about 0.5km, compared to 1.0km, and can image areas of interest such as large thunderstorm complexes or hurricanes every 30 to 60 seconds, compared to every 15 minutes from preexisting geosynchronous satellites.

Listing image by NOAA