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Nancy Neal
Headquarters, Washington                  Jan. 30, 2003
(Phone: 202/358-2369)

Cynthia O'Carroll
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/614-5563)

Patricia Viets
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, Suitland, Md.
(Phone: 301/457-5005)

RELEASE: 03-024

ENVIRONMENTAL SATELLITE READIED TO DETECT SOLAR STORMS

     The nation's newest environmental satellite, GOES-12, is being 
readied for operations, NASA and the Commerce Department's National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today.

GOES-12 is equipped with an advanced instrument for real- time solar 
forecasting. The Solar X-ray Imager (SXI) aboard the satellite will 
enable forecasters and scientists to detect solar storms that could 
impact billions of dollars worth of assets.

"I want to offer my congratulations to the SXI partners on their 
significant achievements," said Dr. Richard Fisher, Director of the 
Sun Earth Connection Division at NASA Headquarters. "I view  the 
initiation of the new SXI serivce as a victory for the national 
scientific research program. Yesterday's research mysteries have 
become the subject of today's report on space weather conditions," he 
said

The instrument will take a full-disk image of the sun's atmosphere 
once every minute. NOAA and the U.S. Air Force will use the images to 
monitor and forecast the sources of space weather disturbances from 
the sun. The images will enable forecasters to predict disturbances to 
Earth's space environment that can destroy satellite electronics, 
disrupt long-distance radio communications or surge power grids.

The ability to monitor and forecast solar disturbances is valuable to 
operators of military and civilian radio and satellite communications 
systems, navigation systems, astronauts, high-altitude aviators and 
scientists.

The SXI is a small telescope that makes use of advanced technology and 
grazing incidence optics to allow it to see the sun's outer atmosphere 
or corona in X-rays. SXI lets solar forecasters see phenomena they 
couldn't otherwise view, such as coronal holes, whose high-speed winds 
cause geomagnetic storms; and to infer solar activity occurring behind 
the sun's edge, or limb. X-ray images are more accurate than white 
light imagers for identifying the location of flares.

"NASA is excited about providing another fine tool for the NOAA team 
to use in weather operations, including space weather forecasts," said 
Martin A. Davis, NASA GOES program manager at Goddard Space Flight 
Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Md. GOES-12 represents a continuation of a 
27-year joint program between NASA and NOAA.

The United States operates two environmental satellites in 
geostationary orbit 22,300 miles over the equator. GOES-12 was 
launched on July 23, 2001, and placed into on-orbit storage. 
Controllers at NOAA's Satellite Operations Control Center in Suitland, 
Md., are commanding the satellite out of storage and preparing it for 
operations.

NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service 
operates the GOES series of satellites. After the satellites complete 
on-orbit checkout, NOAA assumes responsibility for command and 
control, data receipt, product generation and distribution. GSFC 
manages the design, development and launch of the spacecraft for NOAA. 
The SXI was built by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in 
Huntsville, Ala.

The images taken by the SXI will be available in real time to the 
public via the Internet through NOAA's National Geophysical Data 
Center website at:

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/stp.html

SXI imagery is available at: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/sxi/

More information about NASA is available at:
  http://www.nasa.gov

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