Editor’s Note, March 26, 2024: The launch of GOES-U is now targeted for June 25, 2024.
GOES-U, the last of NOAA’s advanced GOES-R series of satellites, arrived safely this morning at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to begin final preparations for its upcoming launch.
Shipping a satellite is no small feat. GOES-U is the size of a small school bus and weighs over 6,000 pounds! The spacecraft team at Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colorado, where GOES-U was built, packed the satellite in a high-tech shipping container that protected its sensitive instruments and acted as a mobile clean room during transport. GOES-U was then driven to Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora, Colorado, and loaded on the C-5M Super Galaxy cargo transport that carried it to Florida.
GOES-U landed at the NASA Launch and Landing Facility airstrip at Kennedy Space Center and was transported to the Astrotech Space Operations spacecraft processing facility in nearby Titusville, where it will go through a series of electrical tests to confirm it is working properly and mechanical configurations to prepare it for launch.
GOES-U is scheduled to launch no earlier than April 30, 2024, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Read more about the GOES-U Road to Launch.
View Photos of GOES-U's Journey to the Kennedy Space Center Below
GOES-U Departs Lockheed Martin Space Systems via Truck
Crews Prepare to Load GOES-U into a C-5 Super Galaxy Cargo Jet
GOES-U is Loaded Inside the Cargo Plane
The GOES-U Satellite is Unloaded from the Cargo Plane after Arriving at the Kennedy Space Center
GOES-U is Brought into Astrotech's Payload Processing Facility
Technicians Conducting Initial Inspection of GOES-U
GOES-U is Set Up on a Stand
Earth from Orbit: GOES-U Arrives at Kennedy Space Center
NOAA’s GOES-U, the fourth and final satellite in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) – R Series, the Western Hemisphere’s most advanced weather-observing and environmental monitoring system, is entering the final stage of preparations before liftoff. NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than April 30 for the launch of GOES-U on a Falcon Heavy rocket.
Stay informed as GOES-U moves closer to launch by visiting the GOES-U launch page.