The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) I through M, which were built under contract to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and launched between 1994 and 2001, have collectively outperformed their life expectancy by more than 55 percent, with two of the satellites still providing critical meteorological monitoring functions.

In fulfilling the NASA contract, SS/L provided significant improvements over the previous GOES system in both weather imagery and atmospheric sounding information, allowing for improved weather services, including the forecasting of hurricanes and other severe storms that threaten life or property. Supporting the U.S. weather monitoring and forecast operations, the GOES satellites are a key component of NOAA's National Weather Service operations.

"SS/L made a significant contribution to the international meteorological community with the GOES I-M program," said Martin A. Davis, NASA GOES program manager at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "The SS/L-built satellites continue to be a critical component to our National Weather Service operations and their longevity has given us additional leeway in our schedule to deploy next-generation systems."

Satellite Longevity

Two of the five satellites were launched in 1994 and 1995 and provided 24-hour monitoring and measurement of dynamic weather events in real time. A third, launched in 1997, served as backup and provided added coverage of severe weather. A fourth, GOES-L, was launched in 2000, and the last in the series, GOES-M, was launched in 2001. As a demonstration of the reliability and robust design of the SS/L-built GOES satellites, GOES-11 (named GOES-L before launch) was put into service in May 2006 after being stored on the ground for two years and stored on-orbit for six years.

SS/L partnered with ITT Space Systems Division to develop the GOES weather imaging and sounding systems, which were significantly improved over previous systems. During satellite operations, the imager and sounder in each satellite collect high-resolution visible and infrared images, as well as temperature and moisture profiles of the atmosphere. The satellites transmit data to ground terminals, which rebroadcast the information to primary weather services both in the United States and the western hemisphere.

SS/L provided many breakthroughs in meteorological data collection with the GOES I-M program, including the following:

+ First 3-axis stabilized GOES series providing continuous earth imaging
+ Higher and more accurate image quality
+ Ability to distinguish ice and water clouds during daylight
+ Accurate delineation of clouds above 12,000 feet
+ First ever monitoring of total ozone from geosynchronous orbit
+ First GOES Solar X-Ray Imager on GOES-12

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