92nd Atlas V launch is in the books for ULA!

ULA United Launch Alliance successfully launched their 92nd Atlas V rocket, the 149th ULA launch and the GOES-T weather satellite for NASA & NOAA in strong northerly ground level winds estimated to be over 20 miles an hour from SLC-41 Cape Canaveral Florida. This on time Launch occurred at 4:38 PM EST or 21:38 UTC Tuesday March 1st 2022!

This Atlas V rocket in a 541 configuration will produced over 2.25 million pounds of thrust at liftoff to help place this important weather satellite into an geostationary orbit 22,236 miles above Earth. At liftoff its equivalent to 32 million horsepower!

GOES-T  built by Lockheed Martin will be called GOES WEST once operational will protect over a billion people living and working in the Americas from the western contiguous United States, Alaska ,Hawaii,  Mexico,  Central America and Pacific ocean. Working in tandem with GOES EAST these two powerful weather satellites will cover more than half the globe from New Zealand to the west coast of Africa with detailed measurements for hurricane and tornado tracking, lightning mapping including solar and space weather too.

Weather has improved to 70% favorable at launch for today.

Photo Credit Scott Schilke for spacenews.lu and space-news.es