The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, or GOES-R, to be launched in 2012, will provide critical atmospheric, oceanic, climatic, solar and space data. The satellite will house an advanced imager, hyperspectral suite (including atmospheric sounding and coastal waters capabilities), lightning mapper, solar imager and space environment monitor.

     GOES satellites are a mainstay of weather and space weather forecasting, and ocean and climate monitoring in the United States. The third generation of GOES will provide new data unlike anything seen before in the history of Earth observations. This new GOES, planned for launch in 2012, will scan the Earth nearly five times faster than the current GOES. The satellites will provide the user community (television meteorologists, private weather companies, the aviation and agriculture communities, and national and international government agencies) with about one hundred times the amount of data currently provided.