In a post it made today, NASA showed how it placed huge satellites inside rockets. In addition, these images, which we will not see very often, are said to belong to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) GOES-T weather satellite, which is expected to be launched on March 1 from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Here are those images…
NASA shared GOES-T weather satellite images
Built by Lockheed Martin, the 6,000-pound GOES-T weather satellite is deployed within its outer casing at the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Florida, about 16 miles from the launch site.
The outer fairing will be placed on top of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket on Thursday, with the satellite securely fixed inside. Then, on February 28, the entire system will be taken to the Cape Canaveral launch pad for launch the next day.
About NASA satellites and crews, GOES-T mission manager Rex Engelhardt said in a post on his website:
Things are getting real now. GOES-T is fully assembled and ready to launch. Next week, we’ll be running the final launch reviews and running teams on their respective consoles in preparation for event day.
GOES-T will be the third satellite in NOAA’s GOES-R series. This network will enable meteorologists to monitor and forecast local weather events that affect public safety, including thunderstorms, tornadoes, fog, hurricanes, flash floods and other severe weather events.
GOES-T will be set to provide critical data to NASA for the US West Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America and the Pacific Ocean. It will also detect and monitor environmental hazards such as forest fires and volcanic eruptions.
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