Space Systems/Loral Completes GOES Satellite Work
Space Systems/Loral finished providing satellite support for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) program, the company announced.
Space Systems/Loral provided five advanced weather satellites and on-orbit services to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Space Systems/Loral is a unit of Loral Space & Communications [LORL].
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) I through M, built under a NASA Goddard Space Flight Center contract and launched between 1994 and 2001, overall outperformed their life expectancy by more than 55 percent, the company stated.
Two of the satellites still provide meteorological monitoring functions.
Space Systems/Loral noted the GOES system has been improved, including both weather imagery and atmospheric sounding information, which affords improved weather services, including the forecasting of hurricanes and other severe storms that threaten life or property.
SS/L stated it provided many breakthroughs in meteorological data collection with the GOES I-M program:
- 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