Advanced weather satellite reaches planned orbit

A powerful new weather satellite, the first of four at the heart of a nearly $11 billion upgrade to the nation’s forecasting infrastructure, completed a fifth and final main engine rocket firing Tuesday, the last step in a 10-day climb to its operational orbit 22,300 miles above the equator. Greg Mandt, the GOES-R program director with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the agency hopes to downlink the first pictures from the satellite’s camera, the Advanced Baseline Imager, or ABI, in early January, after allowing trapped gases and contaminants to escape in the vacuum of space. More

(Source: CBS News - Nov 30)