BRUCE BUCKINGHAM: Next question is from Sam, who's way up in Seattle, and his question is: 'Why is GOES-N being launched from Florida when NOAA-N was launched from California?' ANDRE' DRESS: Sam, that's a good question. And it really comes down to efficiency in how you're actually, what orbit you want to get to. And so, we mentioned earlier about the POES satellite is actually in a low-Earth orbit, and it's called POES because it's, it's a polar orbit, it actually orbits over the Earth north to south, whereas the GOES spacecraft orbits out along the equator. It actually sits on the equator. So it turns out that it's more efficient to actually launch a satellite at a latitude that's closely related to the actual inclination in which the orbit will finally be. So, if you want something that's going to orbit over the poles, you want to launch at a higher latitude, get more fuel-efficient out of a launch vehicle, and for GOES we want to be down on the, at the equator, so we actually launch lower latitudes. And that's the primary reason. BRUCE BUCKINGHAM: Okay, good deal.
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ksc_081505_goesn_dress_5
Date Created
August 24, 2005
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KSC
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video
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NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration
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