Green light for GOES-13

GOES-13 (GOES-N), the first of three Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), has completed on-orbit testing and has been accepted by NASA.

‘We are building three advanced GOES weather satellites for NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to monitor land, sea, atmosphere and space to create a network-enabled data collection system that tracks Earth's changing systems,’ said Stephen T. O'Neill, president of Boeing Satellite Systems International.

GOES-N, now referred to as "GOES 13," was launched on a Boeing Delta IV rocket on May 24, 2006. Successful spacecraft acceptance follows the on-schedule completion of a six-month, post-launch test program from the NOAA Satellite Operations Control Center in Suitland, Maryland.

GOES-N will support NOAA and NASA scientists collecting and analysing real-time environmental data as well as rescuers responding to calls for help through a communication subsystem that detects distress signals from land, sea and air.

Designed and manufactured at Boeing's satellite facility in El Segundo, California, the GOES-N series spacecraft are based on the three-axis Boeing 601 model satellite.