Abstract

On 13 April 1994, the first of NOAA's next generation of geostationary satellites, GOES-8, was launched. All components of the GOES-8 system are new or greatly improved: (1) the satellite is earth oriented to improve instrument performance; (2) sounding and imaging operations are now performed by different and separate instruments; (3) a five band multispectral radiometer with higher spatial resolution improves imaging capabilities; (4) a sounder with higher radiometric sensitivity enables operational temperature and moisture profile retrieval from geostationary altitude for the first time; (5) a different data format is used to retransmit raw data to direct receive users; and, (6) a new ground data processing system handles the high data volume and distributes advanced products to a variety of users.

© 1995 Optical Society of America