SpaceX launches final NASA, NOAA GOES weather satellite on Falcon Heavy rocket –

Update 6:12 p.m. EDT: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy second stage completed its second burn and is in a coast phase. Satellite deployment is anticipated around 9:56 p.m. EDT (0156 UTC).

The finale in a series of critical weather satellites for the United States surmounted some weather challenges as it began its journey to join its three fellow satellites on orbit. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-U (GOES-U) satellite is designed to provide critical weather, climate and solar data to meteorologists and other parties to enhance the safety of people and property.

The spacecraft, managed by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was launched to a geosynchronous transfer orbit onboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Launch of this fourth and final satellite for the GOES-R series happened at 5:26 p.m. EDT (2126 UTC). As of 6:12 p.m. EDT (2212 UTC), the upper stage of the rocket was in a coast phase with the GOES-U satellite attached to the payload adaptor.

During a prelaunch press conference, Brian Cizek, a launch weather officer with the 45th Weather Squadron, noted that there was only a 30 percent chance of favorable weather during the two-hour launch window. That improved to about 50 percent in the early part of the countdown and then 70 percent in time for launch.

The main weather concerns heading into the launch were the cumulus cloud rule, the anvil cloud rule and the surface electric fields rule.

“We evaluate a set of ten lighting launch commit criteria that are designed to protect not just against natural lightning, but rocket-triggered lightning,” Cizek said. “The rocket can actually trigger its own lightning strike if it flies through or near a cloud that could hold a charge by increasing the electric field in the atmosphere by up to 100 times. So, that’s what these rules are designed to protect against.”

A pair of sonic booms shook Florida’s Space Coast as SpaceX recovered the two side boosters on the three-core Falcon Heavy rocket, tail numbers B1072 and B1086. They touched down at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) and Landing Zone 2 (LZ-2) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station a little more than eight minutes after liftoff. The core booster, B1087, was expended following separation with the rocket’s upper stage.

All three of boosters being used on this mission were brand new.

“With reusability, we’re reusing our vehicles, but we also need to replenish the fleet. And the decision that we made in coordination with the NASA Launch Services Program (LSP)was that it makes sense for us to replenish the fleet now with these new boosters,” said Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX’s director of NASA Science Missions, during a prelaunch press conference on Monday.