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Product Name: Goes N, O, P
Product Description
In January 1998, The Boeing Company of El Segundo, Calif., was awarded a
contract from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The contract
currently includes the design, manufacture, integration and launch of three
Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, GOES N, GOES O and GOES P.
The GOES program is funded and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). Upon completion of N through P, the company will have
built a total of eight spacecraft in the GOES series.
Based on the highly successful Boeing 601 spacecraft, the new satellites will
provide more accurate location of severe storms and other weather phenomena,
resulting in more precise warnings to the public. The three-axis modified Boeing
601 body-stabilized spacecraft design enables the primary sensors to
"stare" at Earth and thus frequently image clouds, monitor Earth's
surface temperature, and sound Earth's atmosphere for its vertical temperature
and water vapor distribution. Atmospheric phenomena can be tracked, ensuring
real-time coverage of short-lived dynamic events, such as severe local storms
and tropical hurricanes and cyclones, two types of meteorological events that
directly affect public safety, property, and ultimately, economic health and
development.
Boeing will furnish the communications subsystem with a search-and-rescue
capability to detect distress signals from ships and airplanes, and will also
furnish space environmental monitoring instruments and operator training. Ground
station upgrades will be provided by Boeing's teammate Integral Systems Inc.
Boeing will also integrate three government-furnished instruments: an Imager and
Sounder built by ITT Industries, Inc., and a Solar X-Ray Imager built by
Lockheed Martin.
The imager is a multispectral five-channel instrument that produces visible
and infrared images of Earth's surface, oceans, cloud cover and severe storm
developments. The multispectral sounder provides vertical temperature and
moisture profiles of the atmosphere, augmenting data from the imager. Sounder
data are also used in computer models that produce mid- and long-range weather
forecasts. A new Solar X-Ray imager will monitor the sun's X-rays for the early
detection of solar flares. This early warning is important because these solar
flares affect not only the safety of humans in high-altitude missions, such as
the Space Shuttle, but also military and commercial satellite communications.
The GOES satellites also carry space environment monitoring instruments, built
by Assurance Technology Corp., which monitor X-rays, extreme ultraviolet and
particle emissions including solar protons, alpha particles, and electrons.
These space environment monitoring instruments also include a magnetometer,
built by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), which samples
the Earth's magnetosphere.
Stowed (left); In Orbit (right)
A data collection system on GOES receives and relays environmental data
sensed by widely dispersed surface platforms such as river and rain gauges,
seismometers, tide gauges, buoys, ships, and automatic weather stations.
Platforms transmit sensor data to the satellite at regular or self-timed
intervals, upon interrogation by the satellite, or in an emergency alarm mode
whenever a sensor receives information exceeding a preset level.
The first Boeing-built GOES satellite, GOES D, was launched in 1980. This was
followed by GOES E in 1981, GOES F in 1983, GOES G in 1986 (booster failed
during launch), and GOES H in 1987. The GOES satellites transmit data collected
to NOAA's Wallops, Va. ground station, which relays the data to the NOAA
Satellite Operations Control Center in Suitland, Md. The information is then
processed and distributed to users throughout the world.
The Boeing Company is the world's leading manufacturer of commercial
communications satellites, and is also a major provider of space systems,
satellites, and payloads for national defense, science and environmental
applications.
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