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Thanks to the new weather satellite, forecasters will soon be able to see real-time mapping of lightning activity around the globe, allowing them to more closely monitor solar storms caused by the Sun.
NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are jointly launching the Geostationary Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) mission on Tuesday.
The weather satellite will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a two-hour launch window beginning at 5:26 pm ET. The launch will be streamed live on NASA’s website. At the start of the launch window, weather conditions in Florida are 60% favorable for the launch, decreasing to 30% toward the end of the window.
GOES-U is the fourth and final satellite in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R-series, “the most advanced weather observation and environmental monitoring system in the Western Hemisphere,” according to NOAA.
“The GOES-R series of satellites has been a game changer for us,” NOAA National Weather Service Administrator Ken Graham said at a press conference Monday. “Since the series first launched in 2016, the latest generation of GOES has enabled new and improved forecast and warning services that help save lives and protect property.”
Once GOES-U reaches geostationary orbit, a circular orbit above Earth’s equator, the satellite will be renamed GOES-19, or GOES East. It will replace the previous GOES East satellite, GOES-16, which launched in 2016, and will work in conjunction with GOES-18, also known as GOES West. Meanwhile, the GOES-16 satellite will essentially be the system’s in-orbit backup in case one of the satellites fails.
The GOES-18 and GOES-19 satellites will collect atmospheric, solar, climate and ocean data and will cover more than half of the Earth, from the west coast of Africa to New Zealand.
What makes GOES-U different from other satellites is that it has new capabilities for monitoring space weather.
As the sun approaches a solar maximum, the peak of its 11-year cycle expected this year, it’s become increasingly active, and researchers are seeing increasingly intense solar flares and coronal mass ejections erupting from the sun’s surface.
Coronal mass ejections are giant clouds of ionized gases called plasma and magnetic fields that are ejected from the sun’s outer atmosphere.
If these explosions are directed towards Earth, they can cause geomagnetic storms, major disturbances of the Earth’s magnetic field. These phenomena can always affect communications, power grids, navigation, radio and satellite operations.
Atmospheric Image Assembly
On May 10th, solar activity can be seen swirling above the Sun.
On May 10th, the most intense solar storm to affect Earth in the past 20 years occurred, but fortunately the aurora only shone in states where the aurora is not observed.
Increased solar activity creates auroras around the Earth’s poles. These are known as the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, and the Southern Lights, or Aurora Australis. When energetic particles from a coronal mass ejection reach the Earth’s magnetic field, they interact with gases in the atmosphere, creating different colored lights in the sky.
GOES-U carries several instruments that will improve our ability to detect space weather hazards, including the Compact Coronagraph-1, which can detect solar flares and coronal mass ejections, and characterize the size, speed, density and direction of solar storms.
The coronagraph will continuously monitor the solar corona, or the hot outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere, where space weather phenomena originate, said El-Sayed Talaat, director of NOAA’s Space Weather Observatory.
The instrument’s capabilities will enable NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center to issue warnings and advisories one to four days in advance, “writing a new chapter in space weather observations,” Talaat said.
Compact Coronagraph 1 is the world’s first operational satellite coronagraph to better monitor the Sun, said Steve Boltz, NOAA’s associate administrator for Satellite Information Services.
“This new instrument will deliver images of the solar corona to forecasters at the Space Weather Prediction Center within 30 minutes, a significant reduction from the roughly eight hours it previously took,” Graham said. “Geomagnetic storms can impact infrastructure on Earth, putting power grids, communications, navigation systems, aviation and space-based assets at risk. More accurate and faster observations will allow us to better warn infrastructure providers and agencies of potential hazards so they can take action.”
From orbit, GOES-U will monitor weather, climate and environmental hazards across North America, Central America, South America, the Caribbean, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the west coast of Africa.
GOES-U has a unique vantage point to spot tropical storms, send alerts to forecasters as storms form in the Atlantic, and provide near real-time tracking and monitoring.
The satellite is equipped with a suite of scientific instruments, including imaging and mapping technology, that will allow it to collect valuable data about hurricanes, including upper-air wind speeds, the characteristics of a hurricane’s eye, and lightning activity — all of which helps forecasters better understand the potential risk.
GOES-U will carry the first operational lightning mapping instrument in geostationary orbit. As storms develop, lightning activity tends to increase in large spikes. Understanding how storms develop and intensify can help meteorologists better predict whether a storm is likely to produce flash flooding, hail, damaging winds, or tornadoes.
Sullivan said the lightning mapping device will take pictures of the Earth at a rate of 500 times per second to track lightning like never before.
GOES-U’s main camera can zoom in every 30 seconds to track dangerous weather or environmental conditions, enabling a better warning system, said Pam Sullivan, director of NOAA’s GOES-R program.
Forecasters can use GOES-U’s instruments to identify wildfire risk, including hotspots, intensity, smoke emissions and impacts to air quality, as well as data that helps trackers predict fire movement. The satellite can also use its lightning mapping capabilities to determine which lightning strikes are most likely to spark wildfires.
Other environmental hazards that GOES-U can track include real-time imagery of fog and low clouds that affect air and maritime shipping, and detecting volcanic eruptions, ash and sulfur dioxide spewing from volcanoes. GOES-U can monitor atmospheric river phenomena — large parts of Earth’s atmosphere that carry moisture from the equator to the poles — that can cause floods and landslides.
In addition to providing early warning of hurricane formation, GOES-U can also collect climate data on the Earth’s oceans, including indications of marine heatwaves and sea surface temperatures that could affect the marine food chain and cause large-scale coral bleaching events.
