The US agency NASA is ready to send a high-definition environmental satellite from Florida next Tuesday that will take better space images and measure hurricanes, electrical storms, tornadoes and a wide variety of natural threats with greater precision and anticipation .
An Atlas V rocket, from the United Launch Alliance company, will be in charge of taking the so-called GOES-T into space on Tuesday, March 1 with a two-hour takeoff window that begins at the 16.38 EST (18.38 GMT) of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in central Florida.
NASA stressed that it has spent years building the instruments and the spacecraft, integrating all the components of the satellite and conducting tests rigorous to ensure that it can withstand “the harsh conditions of launch and reside at 22,236 miles (about 35,700 kilometers) about the Earth”.
The GOES-T of the Administration The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Survey (NOAA) is the third satellite in the GOES-R series, “the most sophisticated climate observation and environmental monitoring system in the Western Hemisphere”.
The series “provides advanced images and atmospheric measurements, real-time mapping of lightning activity and space weather monitoring,” details NASA.
NOAA explained this Saturday that ground support is essential for this series of satellites.
This federal agency developed a state-of-the-art ground system that receives data from the spacecraft and “generates real-time data products.”
ENHANCED FIRE AND FLOOD WARNING
The GOES satellite network helps meteorologists observe and predict weather events places that affect an public safety, including thunderstorms, tornadoes, fog, hurricanes, flash floods and other severe weather conditions.
Among the specific benefits of this sophisticated system, the NOOA highlights better proven forecasts of hurricane trajectory and intensity and increased lead time for electrical storms and tornadoes.
In the same way there will be an earlier warning of the dangers of lightning strikes to the ground, better detection of torrential rains and risks of flash floods.
According to NOAA, This technology will allow improvements in smoke and dust control, in air quality warnings and alerts, and in fire detection and intensity estimation.
Other advances will be in the fields of low cloud/fog detection and transportation safety and security. aviation route planning.
It will also make more accurate warnings for communication and navigation interruptions and blackouts, and monitoring of energetic particles responsible for radiation risks.
LESS DIRT, MORE QUALITY
The design of the GOES-T (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-T ) decreases the possibility of future failures in the cooling system due to the accumulation of dirt.
In this way it overcomes the problems that occurred with other satellites in the series and that caused “a partial loss of of infrared images at certain times”.
The GOES-T also carries an improved magnetometer instrument for superior performance when measuring variations in the magnetic field.
These satellites also house instruments that detect and monitor the dangers of the approaching space weather.
Among them the image generator solar ultraviolet sensors and extreme ultraviolet irradiation and X-ray sensors, which provide images of the Sun and detection of solar flares.
The observations of these instruments contribute, among others, to space weather forecasts and early warning of interruptions in public energy services and communication and navigation systems, as well as radiation damage to orbiting satellites.
NASA explained that this third satellite in the series will be placed in a geosynchronous transfer orbit, will separate from the launch vehicle and then moved to a higher geostationary orbit and renamed GOES-17.
After being checked, calibrated and considered ready to operate, the now GOES-17 will replace the GOES-17 in the GOES-West position, watching the west coast of the United States, Wings ka, Hawaii and the Pacific Ocean.
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