Watch this video to learn how a weather satellite is launched! Click here to download this video (1920x1080, 115 MB, video/mp4).
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Video transcript
Now it's my time to shine in outer space. I'm a GOES-R series weather satellite. That stands for a geostationary operational environmental satellite R series, and the R stands for my order in the series of weather satellites. Like my older siblings before me I do a lot for watching weather, but I'm pretty special because I have a lot of new gadgets.
I'm originally from Colorado, but my journey to space had a few stops along the way. I was shipped in a very special satellite shipping container to Kennedy Space Center. Moving me around was not easy. I'm over 18 feet wide and weigh six thousand pounds...
And then things got really exciting! I was loaded onto a big rocket, woo! After we blasted off together my compartment separated from the launch vehicle, and I continued to climb higher and higher. Then I broke away completely and unfurled my solar panel and antenna.
After that I had to use my thrusters to get into just the right position 22,000 miles above the ground and traveling 1.9 miles per second to keep up with Earth's rotation, and then I officially started my job along with my sister satellites where I take advanced pictures for more accurate weather forecasts, map lightning in real time and improve the monitoring of the sun's activity. It's so awesome!