GOES-U has been launched, what's next for the satellite?

The $1.397 Billion weather satellite made by Lockheed Martin launched on Tuesday 25/06/24 at 21:26 GMT. GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite and is run by the US National Oceanic and Atomospheric Administration, and its main purpose is to provide continuous coverage of weather and give better insight ino hazardous environmental conditions across the majority of the Western Hemisphere. It is the last of the GOES-R program, which is the current series of advanced weather observation satellites.

The satellites can also help predict space weather that could potentially interfere with other satellites and their electronics, GPS systems and radio communications. GOES-U also has a new piece of equipment, the Compact Coronograph-1 which allows scientists to observe the fainter solar atmosphere by imaging the solar corona, which will be used then to observe any coronal mass ejections (CMEs)

^A CAD rendering of the CCOR (Compact Coronograph) instrument’s placement on the GOES-U satellite

Since being deployed from SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, it takes about two weeks for GOES-U to reach geostationary orbit (an orbit that allows the satellite’s orbital period to be equal to the Earth’s rotation speed - meaning that from an observer on Earth’s view, it would look stationary in the sky) After GOES-U reaches this point, it will then be referred to as GOES-19.