KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida, Jan. 24, 2024 – The next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-U has successfully arrived at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, to begin preparing for its spring launch. It is the final of four satellites in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s GOES-R weather satellite series, all built by Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] in Littleton, Colorado.

GOES-U will enable the constellation to continue saving lives and property by ensuring forecasters have access to better-than-ever weather data for many years to come. These satellites provide meteorologists in the U.S. and western hemisphere with crystal-clear images of severe storms, hurricanes, wildfires and other weather hazards earlier than ever before.

“As severe weather patterns increase with our changing climate, unparalleled data from these GOES-R satellites help people stay safe,” said Jagdeep Shergill, Geo Weather programs director, Lockheed Martin. “The GOES-R satellites Lockheed Martin has created have revolutionized weather forecasting, and we’re looking forward to seeing how we can continue to support this capability for future NOAA missions.”

Moving a Spacecraft Across the Country

The small school bus-sized GOES-U needed a spacious ride to Florida, so the team looked no further than the trusty, Lockheed Martin-built C-5M Super Galaxy aircraft. To prepare for shipment, the Lockheed Martin team enclosed the spacecraft in a specialized shipping container that functioned as its own miniature cleanroom.

This enclosure protects GOES-U’s suite of seven state-of-the-art space and Earth weather instruments, including a brand new one for GOES-U: a compact coronagraph from the Naval Research Laboratory that will better characterize the Sun’s coronal mass ejections.

The weather satellite was first transported from the company’s Littleton facility to Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora, Colorado, where it was carefully loaded onto the C-5 for transit.

Upon its arrival at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida Jan. 23, teams then transported GOES-U to Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida – also a Lockheed Martin company. For the next several months, engineers there will ready the spacecraft for its launch, conducting activities like final testing, checkouts and encapsulation in its rocket fairing.

GOES-U is baselined for launch starting in April 2024.

IMAGE CAPTION: GOES-U is the final satellite to round out NOAA’s GOES-R series and is seen here being loaded for transport at Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora, Colorado. Credit: Lockheed Martin.