NASA will provide coverage of the prelaunch and launch activities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) next weather observing and environmental monitoring system satellite. Currently known as GOES-T, this is the third satellite in NOAAs Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) R series.
GOES-T is scheduled to launch at 4:38 p.m. EST Tuesday, March 1, on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. There is a two-hour launch window.
Live launch coverage will begin at 4 p.m. on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agencys website. NASA will hold a science briefing at 1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 25, followed by a prelaunch news conference at 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 26.
GOES-T will be renamed GOES-18 once it reaches geostationary orbit. Following a successful orbital checkout of its instruments and systems, GOES-18 will go into operational service as GOES West. In this position, the satellite will provide critical data for the U.S. West Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America, and the Pacific Ocean.
All media participation in news conferences will be remote except where noted otherwise.
Full mission coverage is as follows:
Friday, Feb. 25
1 p.m. GOES-T Science Briefing with the following participants:
- Dr. Dan Lindsey, GOES-R program scientist, NOAA
- Dr. James "Jim" Yoe, chief administrator, Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation
- Candace Carlisle, GOES-R flight project manager, NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center
- Tewa Kpulun, Geostationary Lightning Mapper science lead, Lockheed Martin
- Daniel Gall, Advanced Baseline Imager chief systems engineer, Space and Airborne Systems, L3Harris Technologies
