KSC-01pp1372

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -- Brightly lit clouds of steam and smoke roll across Launch Complex 36-A, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as the Atlas II rocket bearing the GOES-M satellite roars into the night sky. Liftoff occurred at 3:23:01 EDT. GOES-M is the last in the current series of advanced geostationary weather satellites in service. GOES-M has a new instrument not on earlier spacecraft, a Solar X-ray Imager, which can be used in forecasting space weather and the effects of solar storms