A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, or GOES-S. Launch was at 5:02 p.m. EST, March 1, 2018. 
<p>The GOES-S satellite will provide faster, more accurate and more detailed data, in near real-time, to track storm systems, lightning, wildfires, coastal fog and other hazards that affect the western United States.
</p>
Once GOES-S is positioned in a geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above Earth, in approximately two weeks, it will be renamed GOES-17. Later this year, after undergoing a full checkout and validation of its six high-tech instruments, the new satellite will move to the GOES-West position and become operational. From there, it constantly will provide advanced imagery and atmospheric measurements, real-time mapping of lightning activity, and improved monitoring of solar activity and space weather.
<bdi><a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q117448892" class="extiw" title="d:Q117448892"><span title="NASA photographer">Kim Shiflett</span></a>
</bdi>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/next-generation-weather-satellite-goes-s-lifts-off">https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/next-generation-weather-satellite-goes-s-lifts-off</a> (<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/39853231794_48d98dbeb5_o.jpg">image link</a>)