«You know, there’s the whole impostor syndrome thing, and I didn’t feel like I was qualified to be here because I didn’t have some sort of traditional path or because my educational background looks different than that of most of my colleagues. But I’m now at a place where I’ve come to understand that’s true for everyone.» – Garrett Sadler, Human Factors Researcher, NASA’s Ames Research Center
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NASA successfully launched the fourth and final satellite in a series of advanced weather satellites for NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) at 5:26 p.m. EDT Tuesday. The GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) will benefit the nation by providing continuous coverage of weather and hazardous environmental conditions across much of the Western Hemisphere.
The satellite launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mission managers confirmed at 10:18 p.m. the spacecraft’s solar arrays successfully deployed, and the spacecraft was operating on its own power.
“As communities across the country and the world feel the effects of extreme weather, satellites like GOES-U keep a close watch to monitor weather in real time,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “NASA and NOAA have worked together for several decades to bring critical data back down to Earth to prepare for severe storms, fire detection, and much more. This fleet of advanced satellites is strengthening resilience to our changing climate, and protecting humanity from weather hazards on Earth, and in space.”
In addition to its critical role in terrestrial weather prediction, the GOES constellation of satellites helps forecasters predict space weather near Earth that can interfere with satellite electronics, GPS, and radio communications. The GOES-U satellite goes beyond the capabilities of its predecessors with a new space weather instrument, the Compact Coronograph-1, which blocks the Sun’s bright light so scientists can observe the relatively fainter solar atmosphere.
“There are so many applications for GOES data – many of which directly impact our everyday lives here on Earth,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “GOES-U will add to the global data record, allowing NASA and NOAA to track changes in our climate and also provide critical information before severe weather and natural disasters strike. NASA looks forward to teaming up with NOAA again as we enter the next generation of Earth-observing satellites.”
Once GOES-U is in a geostationary orbit, about 22,200 miles above Earth, it will be renamed GOES-19. Following a successful orbital checkout of its instruments and systems, GOES-19 will go into service, keeping watch of the weather over most of North America, including the contiguous United States and Mexico, as well as Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west coast of Africa.
“The data that GOES-U will provide is critical to protecting the safety of people in the Western Hemisphere,” said John Gagosian, director, NASA’s Joint Agency Satellite Division. “With this successful launch, forecasters will have a resource to better inform and educate the public.”
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, oversaw the acquisition of the GOES-R series spacecraft and instruments and built the magnetometer for GOES-U and its predecessor, GOES-T. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, provided launch management for the mission.
The GOES-R Series Program is overseen by NOAA, through an integrated NOAA-NASA office that manages the ground system, operates the satellites, and distributes data to users worldwide. Lockheed Martin designs, builds, and tests the GOES-R series satellites. L3Harris Technologies provides the main instrument payload, the Advanced Baseline Imager and the ground system, which includes the antenna system for data reception.
For more information about GOES, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goes
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Liz Vlock
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov
Peter Jacobs
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
301-286-0535
peter.jacobs@nasa.gov
Leejay Lockhart
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-747-8310
leejay.lockhart@nasa.gov
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Tiernan P. Doyle
The nine residents aboard the International Space Station comprising both the Expedition 71 and NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test teams had a day filled with spacesuit checks, advanced microgravity research, and orbital lab maintenance.
NASA Flight Engineers Tracy C. Dyson and Mike Barratt kept up their spacewalk preparations following the early end to Monday’s excursion. The duo’s spacewalk only lasted 31 minutes following a water leak in the service and cooling umbilical unit on Dyson’s spacesuit. Dyson and Barratt safely ended the spacewalk, repressurized the Quest airlock, and removed their spacesuits just over an hour after the spacewalk ended.
Barratt began Tuesday morning troubleshooting Dyson’s spacesuit and inspecting the suit’s components. Afterward, he joined Dyson for ongoing procedure reviews with fellow astronauts Matthew Dominick and Jeanette Epps for future spacewalks.
Dyson wrapped up her day swapping out a water resupply tank in the Destiny laboratory module while Barratt serviced spacesuit lithium-ion batteries in Quest. Dominick worked in the Kibo laboratory module testing flight trajectories and gesture-recognition software on an Astrobee robotic free flyer. Epps traded foam samples inside the Columbus laboratory module for a fluid physics investigation exploring the hydrodynamics of wet foams potentially benefitting mechanical and industrial processes.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, Starliner Commander and Pilot respectively, spent Tuesday inside the Harmony module maintaining orbital plumbing gear. The Crew Flight Test duo replaced the pressure control and pump assembly motor that supports the space station’s main restroom, also known as the waste and hygiene compartment, in the Tranquility module.
Working in the Roscosmos segment of the orbiting outpost, Station Commander Oleg Kononenko photographed the condition of handrails in the Zvezda, Poisk, and Nauka modules to determine of they need replacing. Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub swapped out toilet components inside Zvezda during the morning. He then spent the afternoon with Flight Engineer Alexander Grebenkin collecting microbial air samples in the Roscosmos modules for analysis. During his morning, Grebenkin downloaded radiation data then explored spacecraft and robotic piloting techniques future crews might use on planetary missions.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
Get weekly video highlights at: https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/
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Mark Garcia
3 min read
NASA has selected 12 participating scientists to join ESA’s (European Space Agency) Hera mission, which is scheduled to launch in October 2024. Hera will study the binary asteroid system Didymos, including the moonlet Dimorphos, which was impacted by NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft on Sept. 26, 2022. The objectives of DART and Hera collectively aim to validate the kinetic impact method as a technology to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, if one is ever discovered, and to learn more about the near-Earth asteroids that are the source of this natural hazard.
Hera is scheduled to arrive at the Didymos/Dimorphos binary asteroid system at the end of 2026, where it will gather otherwise unobtainable data about the mass and makeup of both bodies and assess the changes caused by the DART spacecraft’s kinetic impact.
The goal of NASA’s Hera Participating Scientist Program is to support scientists at U.S. institutions to participate on the Hera mission and address outstanding questions in planetary defense and near-Earth asteroid science. The participating scientists will become Hera science team members during their 5-year tenure with the mission.
The newly selected participating scientists are:
DART was the first planetary defense test mission from NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which oversees the agency’s ongoing efforts in planetary defense. International participation in DART and Hera, including the Hera Participating Scientist Program, has been enabled by an ongoing worldwide collaboration in the planetary defense research community known as the Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment.
DART was designed, built, and operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which oversees the agency’s ongoing efforts in planetary defense.
To learn more about NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense
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News Media Contact
Karen Fox / Charles Blue
NASA Headquarters
202-385-1287 / 202-802-5345
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / charles.e.blue@nasa.gov
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2 min read
Earth planning date: Monday, June 24, 2024
This will be an important week for chemistry on our latest drill sample “Mammoth Lakes 2.” Curiosity’s primary goal today was a preconditioning of the SAM instrument in preparation for its chemical analysis. Due to the large amounts of power required by SAM, today’s science block was limited to one hour, although it grew a bit at the cost of next sol’s science allocation. Today’s planning only covers one sol (4225), as our usual Wednesday planning day will not have Deep Space Network availability. We will plan 3 sols on Tuesday as a result.
Over the weekend, the “Mammoth Lakes 2” drill sample was dropped off to CheMin for analysis. Mastcam change detection observations of “Walker Pass 2” and “Finch Lake” were begun and will complete on Sol 4225. Remote science on “Whitebark Pass,” “Quarry Peak,” “Broken Finger Peak,” and “Shout of Relief Pass” completed successfully. On Sol 4225, the focus for remote science was a ChemCam laser spectroscopic characterization and Mastcam imaging of “Horsetail Falls,” an area near the edge of the “Whitebark Pass” workspace slab. The Navcam image below shows the rough surface of “Horsetail Falls” as a stripe of dark rubbly material near the top just right of center edge of the light colored “Whitebark Pass” slab. “Horsetail Falls” is an example of bedrock texture diversity. This target is named for an iconic 270 ft waterfall emerging from Agnew Lake and easily seen from the June Lake Loop road. “Shout of Relief Pass” honors the 11000 ft pass on the Sierra High Route trail which is a gateway to much easier terrain for the next 25 miles of the trail. All targets in this area of Mount Sharp are named after the Bishop geological quadrangle in the High Sierra and Owens Valley of California. ChemCam RMI will also image an 11×1 mosaic of the nearby channel floor where there are interesting color variations. Atmospheric observations in this science block consist of a dust devil survey. In the next plan, SAM will complete its initial analysis. Based on the SAM and CheMin results, the team will then decide whether to do more chemistry at this intriguing location or continue our drive up Mount Sharp.
Written by Deborah Padgett, Curiosity Operations Product Generation Subsystem Lead Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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