BRUCE BUCKINGHAM: Okay. Well, thank you. Space enthusiasts around the world, as you know, have submitted a number of questions for the
GOES-N to our Direct Question Board and folks are really interested in this mission. So, are you ready to take some of their questions?
ANDRE DRESS: Sure.
BRUCE BUCKINGHAM: Great, thank you. Our first question is from Jeff, nearby here at Merritt Island. His question is:
"What will be some of the new advantages provided by the GOES-N?"
ANDRE' DRESS: Well, Jeff, the GOES satellite actually does employ some instruments that were all present on the previous mission.
Those are the imager and sounder. Those instruments are built by ITT and they pretty much have the same heritage, some improvements.
We're also flying an SXI, which is a solar X-ray imager, which we also did fly on the GOES-12 spacecraft.
But this one is built by Lockheed Martin. It's much improved and we're looking forward to using that
instrument in orbit. But the real performance benefits actually come from the spacecraft side. Where, we actually are mounting the instruments,
these imager and sounder are the primary instruments for the spacecraft. On this optical bench, okay,
it's a very highly stable optical bench, and on that optical bench we mount also these startrackers.
Okay, these startrackers can look out into space and lock on stars, and with that information we have the
ability to accurately point the spacecraft and the instruments at the Earth so that there's no shaking,
no vibration. That pointing knowledge is very important to maintaining good, accurate predictions of the weather.
In addition to that, we have prepared larger batteries on the spacecraft. Those larger batteries actually allow us to operate through eclipse,
no outages through eclipse any more. In addition to that, we have more fuel onboard, we have about 10 years of warrantied
life of fuel, and about 14 years of actual fuel life that will take us out potentially even beyond even those 10 years.
BRUCE BUCKINGHAM: Alright, Thank you.