SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches new satellite to monitor solar storms

By Rainier Harris

SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, one of the world’s most powerful operational rockets, blasted off on Tuesday carrying into orbit a new US satellite designed to help weather forecasters monitor massive solar storms.

The rocket, comprised of three modified Falcon cores, launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 5:26 p.m. local time, according to a live webcast. 

The mission is ongoing. Falcon Heavy’s side boosters are scheduled to return and land at SpaceX’s facilities a few minutes after liftoff, while the rocket continues on to deploy the satellite several hours later, according to SpaceX. 

GOES-U is the fourth and final satellite in a series from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NASA. Once GOES-U reaches geostationary orbit, it will be renamed GOES-19. GOES-16, the first in the series, launched in 2016.

Once it arrives to its intended orbit, a fixed position high above the Earth, the GOES-U satellite will use a compact coronagraph that will help weather forecasters monitor solar storms, track hurricanes and lightning, take atmospheric measurements and capture images of Earth.

A coronagraph is a telescope designed to block out the light of the sun so that researchers can see its corona or outermost layer. Coronagraphs help researchers predict the impact of solar flares and so-called coronal mass ejections — essentially massive expulsions of plasma and magnetic field lines — by measuring their size, velocity and density. 

A solar storm can shine dazzling displays of light, such as the aurora in May. But the largest geomagnetic storm since 2003 also caused widespread radio blackouts and distortions to normal energy patterns across the Americas.

Last year, Falcon Heavy launched the world’s largest commercial communications satellite and, separately, the X-37B secretive spaceplane from the US Space Force.

SpaceX is separately developing an even bigger rocket, Starship, to launch satellites and take astronauts to the moon in the coming years.