GOES-R

GOES-16, -17, -T, -U

Mission Profile

GOES-R series (GOES-16, -17, -18, -19, also known as GOES-T and GOES-U) is NOAA's fourth generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, launched beginning on 19 November 2016 aboard Atlas V 541 rockets. The GOES-R series carries the Advanced Baseline Imager capable of scanning the full disk in 16 spectral bands at up to five times the resolution and four times the speed of previous GOES satellites, providing 5-minute full-disk scans and 60-second mesoscale scans for severe weather monitoring. GOES-R instruments also monitor lightning, solar X-rays, energetic particles, and the space weather environment, providing critical data for weather forecasting, tropical cyclone tracking, and space weather alerts. The GOES-16 and GOES-18 satellites currently serve as the operational East and West GOES satellites protecting North America's weather forecasting capability.