Launching a new weather satellite and fixing a spacecraft in interstellar space

By Marian Summerall,

Published July 2, 2024 at 4:52 PM EDT

Ways To Subscribe

SpaceX's launch of its giant Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral carrying National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) fourth and final Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite: GOES-U on June 25, 2024.

Tracking Earth’s weather in space

The fourth and final satellite in the R series of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, or GOES, constellation is now in space. It soon will be ready to monitor and analyze weather patterns on Earth and in space.

The Program Director of GEO weather, which includes GOES-R and GeoXO at Lockheed Martin, is Jagdeep Shergill. She said these satellites are the most advanced fleet of weather satellites in our nation.

“The unique thing about this set of weather observation satellites is that they're geostationary,” Shergill said. “So, they're looking at the same spot on earth. They're watching the weather come in there. In that time span where we can see just the minor changes, whether a storm is increasing intensity or decreasing in intensity, the lightning strikes, those have been a key enabler of under being able to predict the intensity of the storm.”

The mission insignia of NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) mission is pictured in front of the satellite in a vertical position on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Part of a collaborative NOAA and NASA program, GOES-U is the fourth in a series of four advanced geostationary weather satellites. Data from the GOES satellite constellation – consisting of the GOES-R, GOES-S, GOES-T and GOES-U spacecraft – enables forecasters to predict, observe, and track local weather events that affect public safety like thunderstorms, hurricanes, and wildfires.

Along with tracking weather like tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires and thunderstorms, the satellite the size of a small school bus will be able to track lighting patterns. Shergill said it will help people be warned about severe weather faster.

“Imagine a wildfire that starts out in the middle of nowhere, where people haven't put eyes on it, aren't seeing the smoke from it,” Shergill said. “So, the lightning mapper along with the advanced baseline imager can spot these early signs of wildfire and get your first responder out to those areas immediately. It’s providing a lot of that early detection for storms.”

Fixing a spacecraft 15 billion miles away

Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 has been in space for over four decades, sending data back to Scientists from inside and outside of our solar system, along with its companion Voyager II. But a technical issue left Voyager I unable to communicate with scientists for about a year.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Kareem Badaruddin is the mission manager for the Voyager Interstellar Mission and said to fix Voyager 1, they had to go back and use old methods.

This artist rendering shows NASA Voyager spacecraft. Voyager 2 was launched on Aug. 20, 1977. Voyager 1 was launched on Sept. 5, 1977.

“We built two spacecraft, and each of them have these computers, but there are no computers like them on Earth,” Badaruddin said. “There are no computers like them in our solar system. And so, we had to fix them with pencil and paper from 15 billion miles away.”

The Voyager program has been able to photograph space like no other spacecraft has done, including taking an image of Earth known as the “pale blue dot.” Badaruddin said Voyager has a legacy in interstellar space unlike any other.

“It took us 35 years to get to interstellar space. If anyone were to decide ‘hey, I'd like to study interstellar space,’ they've got to get funding and they've got to send a spacecraft out and then they've got to wait 35 years for the spacecraft to start returning data,” Badaruddin said. “It's just wonderful that the original designers did such a magnificent job of building such a resilient and well-made spacecraft. I think the data we're returning from the interstellar medium is one of a kind.”