NASA’s new weather satellite marks 50 years of the GOES program

NASA's newest weather satellite is the fourth and final piece of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite program, also known as GOES, which is celebrating 50 years in 2025 as the new satellite comes online.

The first GOES satellite was launched in October 1975, and in the decades since, dozens of satellites have been launched under the GOES program to improve atmospheric research and forecasting. Today, NASA uses two primary satellites to monitor the western hemisphere, GOES-17 and the new satellite GOES-19, which replaced the previous GOES-16. These satellites are also known as GOES East and GOES West and can observe over half the globe, pole to pole, from New Zealand to West Africa.

The GOES satellites monitor severe storms, lightning, and wildfires and watch the development of hurricanes. Satellites are crucial for high-quality and near real-time data on weather systems big and small.

GOES-19 is equipped with NASA's first compact coronagraph instrument, which monitors the sun for coronal mass ejections that can disturb the Earth's magnetic field. The satellite is also expected to improve air quality and lightning forecasting.

While this was the final launch of the GOES program, GOES-19 will continue to bring improved forecasting through the 2030s as NASA is gearing up for its next generation of weather satellites under its Geostationary Extended Observation program known as GEOXO.