These satellites sit in geostationary orbit, which is 35,786 kilometers above Earth's equator. At this altitude, their orbital period is equal to Earth’s rotational period, so the satellite appears to hover in a fixed position over Earth’s surface.

When GOES-R arrives in orbit, it will sit at a fixed location of 89.5°W while it undergoes further in-orbit testing. Once operational, its environmental data products will support short-term weather forecasts, hazardous weather announcements, maritime forecasts, seasonal forecasts, drought forecasts, hurricane and storm intensity and tracking forecasts, and space weather predictions. In total it will provide 34 atmospheric, land, ocean, solar, and space weather data products for the scientific community!

Better, faster, stronger

The current GOES-East and GOES-West satellites were launched in 2006 and 2010, respectively. While they carry useful instruments and provide world-class data, the technology upon which they were built is now at least 2 decades old. GOES-R represents the first major technological advancement since then.

Most GOES satellites carry a large suite of instruments. The most important ones are the sounder, the imager, and the solar x-ray imager. GOES-R will introduce a massive new 16-channel imager called the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), a Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM), and a Solar UV Imager (SUVI) as a step up from previous GOES instruments.