NOAA’s GOES-9 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit now designated GOES-EAST to monitor weather patterns over the United States; its predecessor, GOES-8, remains in orbit in the GOES-WEST position. GOES-9’s hardware configuration is identical to that of GOES-8, and both suffer minor glitches which will be corrected prior to launch in the GOES-10 satellite. GOES-9 will remain in the GOES-EAST orbit until it is retired from active weather-watching duty in 1998 due to those hardware problems, though it will be pressed back into served and leased to Japan to replace one of that country’s weather satellites between 2003 and 2005. GOES-9 will finally be retired in 2007.
