The GOES I-M Satellites

The GOES I-M system is a basic element of U.S. weather monitoring and forecast operations and is a key element of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA's) National Weather Service operations and modernization program. Spacecraft and ground-based systems work together to accomplish the GOES mission of providing weather imagery and quantitative sounding data. They provide a continuous and reliable stream of environmental information used for weather forecasting and related services. The new, I-M series of GOES satellites provides significant improvements over the previous GOES system in weather imagery and atmospheric sounding information.

[For additional information on these improvements and their meteorological applications, see the related "Introduction to the GOES Imager" and the "Goes-8 Sounder" tutorials, both of which are also available on RAMSDIS.  For the more advanced satellite meteorologists, the RAMM Team's GOES 3.9 µm Tutorial may be of interest.]

The operational GOES satellites are owned and operated by NOAA. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) manages the design, development and launch of the spacecraft. Once the satellite is launched, placed in orbit and checked out, NOAA assumes responsibility for the command and control, data receipt and product generation and distribution. NOAA assigns a letter to a satellite's name before it is launched (e.g., I, J, K, L and M), and replaces that letter with a number once the satellite has achieved orbit. Hence the first satellite of this series, GOES-8 our operational "eastern" satellite, was first referred to as GOES-I; GOES-9, our operational "western" satellite, was first designated GOES-J; and GOES-10, presently in "stand-by" status at 105 degrees west longitude, was known as GOES-K.

The GOES I-M mission is expected to run from the mid-1990s into the first decade of the 21st century. Each element of the mission has been designed to meet all in-orbit performance requirements for at least five years.