Lockheed Martin improving your weather forecast

LITTLETON, Colo. -- Lockheed Martin is attempting to improve the weather forecast as it prepares to launch a new Jefferson County-based satellite.

The first Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R-Series (GOES-R) is scheduled to launch in two weeks.

These next-generation weather satellites will improve forecasting. Lockheed Martin designed and is building all four of the satellites.

The GOES-R satellite will carry six instruments that fit into three classifications: Earth-pointing, solar-pointing and in-situ (near environment). 

SUVI will observe the sun in extreme ultraviolet wavelength range, providing full-disk solar images with increased resolution, sensitivity and dynamic range over current capabilities.

GLM is an innovative instrument that maps lightning across the U.S. in real time.  It will take hundreds of images every second in near-infrared, mapping both cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning.