[SatNews] With acceptance by NASA and NOAA for full service, the 8th GOES satellite has graduated from on-orbit testing.

Boeing [NYSE: BA] has announced that GOES-15, which was launched on March 4th from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, successfully completed five months of on-orbit testing and demonstrated operational readiness of all subsystems, spacecraft instruments, and communications services. GOES-15 has already started to deliver high-resolution photos from space, including the first visible and infrared images of Earth taken by its imager instrument, and the first image of the sun taken by its solar X-ray imager instrument. The eight GOES satellites that Boeing has built for NASA and NOAA began with GOES-D, which launched in 1980. The on-orbit GOES constellation includes the three recently produced Boeing satellites known as GOES-13 (formerly GOES-N), GOES-14 (formerly GOES-O) and GOES-15 (formerly GOES-P). GOES-13 was activated as the operational GOES-East satellite on April 14, in time to monitor the 2010 hurricane season over the Atlantic Ocean. GOES-13 replaced GOES-12, which NOAA moved to 60 degrees West to provide coverage for South America as part of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems. GOES-14 is currently in a storage orbit of 105 degrees West and is ready to become a primary operational satellite in the next two years. GOES-15 will be placed in an on-orbit storage location at 105 degrees West.

The mission of the GOES satellites is to provide space-based Earth observation and global environment-sensing activities, delivering enhanced weather forecasting that protects life and property. In addition to providing the familiar weather images seen on television newscasts every day, NASA and NOAA also recently released a six-minute video of the 2009 hurricane season. The video includes data and images supplied by the GOES satellites. In addition to the acceptance of GOES-15, Boeing also handed over a government satellite to the U.S. Air Force on Aug. 26th. The delivery of two operational satellites to two customers in the same week marks only the second time this has occurred in Space & Intelligence Systems' 47-year history, underscoring Boeing’s commitment to solid program execution.