Apr. 16, 2010 The Geostationary Operational Environmental
Satellite known as GOES-13 became the official GOES-EAST
satellite on April 14, 2010. GOES-13 was moved from on-orbit
storage and into active duty. It is perched 22,300 miles above
the equator to spot potentially life-threatening weather,
including tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf
of Mexico. "Just in time for the 2010 hurricane season, NOAA
will have one of its newest, technologically advanced satellites
closely tracking these storms -- from when they develop to when
they dissipate," said Mary Kicza, assistant administrator of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA)
Satellite and Information Service in Silver Spring, Md. NASA's
GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., procures and manages the development and launch
of the GOES series of satellites for NOAA on a cost-reimbursable
basis. NASA's GOES Project also creates some of the GOES
satellite images and GOES satellite im