The GOES-U spacecraft has arrived in Florida, where it will undergo final processing ahead of its launch — set to take place no earlier than April 30.
The spacecraft was transported by military aircraft to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 23 and was then moved to the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, where it will be fueled, mated to a payload adapter and encapsulated in a payload fairing, NASA said Tuesday.
GOES-U is the fourth and final member of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series, the latest in a line of weather observation and environmental monitoring satellites that date back to 1975. Once online, GOES-U is expected to keep the GOES satellite system operationally available until 2036.
At present, only GOES-R and GOES-T are in operation, with GOES-S serving as primary backup to both.
The GOES-R Series satellites are built by Lockheed Martin and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The primary instrument on the spacecraft, called the Advanced Baseline Imager, and the ground systems are both provided by L3Harris Technologies.
GOES-R Series launches are managed by NASA. For GOES-U, the launch provider is SpaceX.