GOES-16
GOES-R, now named GOES-16 -- https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES-16
File:Goes 16 first images press release jan 18 2017.pdf
GOES-16 goes "First Light"
Launched in November 2016 with the promise to revolutionize weather forecasting in the U.S.
The most advanced satellite NOAA has ever put in orbit has sent back its first pictures.
In a press release, NOAA said the images are the start of an age of “high-definition from the heavens.”
"This 16-panel image shows the continental United States in the two visible, four near-infrared and 10 infrared channels on ABI. These channels help forecasters distinguish between differences in the atmosphere like clouds, water vapor, smoke, ice and volcanic ash. GOES-16 has three-times more spectral channels than earlier generations of GOES satellites."
NOAA’s satellites are the backbone of its life-saving weather forecasts. GOES-16 will build upon and extend the more than 40-year legacy of satellite observations from NOAA ...
References:
Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) is a collaborative NOAA and NASA program providing continuous imagery and data on atmospheric conditions and solar activity ( space weather ). NASA builds and launches the GOES and NOAA operates them.
GOES Image Viewer
Click on a region to view images and animations for that region.
GOES-16 is a new geostationary observatory weather satellite, intended to evolutionize the way American meteorologists see the weather.
The heart of GOES-16 is its Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), the sophisticated digital camera that offers more embedded data at higher resolution taken in quicker intervals than ever before. ABI will produce 95 percent of the data from GOES-R, downlinking the equivalent of 210 HD movies every day.
In addition to weather forecasting, the imagery will be used for detecting and characterizing wildfires, analyzing air pollution, monitoring volcanic ash clouds and assessing vegetation. The satellite also carries the first Geostationary Lightning Mapper, a Lockheed Martin-made instrument that will take 200 images per second to detect in-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning over the Americas and surrounding ocean areas to increase the warning time for severe weather. GOES-16 also has instruments to monitor the sun, detect solar storm eruptions and alert when the space weather arrives at Earth. Such storms can impact communications, disrupt power grids, threaten the health of astronauts and harm satellites. The GOES-R satellite is expected to produce 1.75 terabytes of data products daily for the National Weather Service and other users.
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