About NOAA's satellites

When I wrote last week about how NOAA Satellites are used to detect wildfires, I knew that it was time for me to write a post introducing all of the satellites that NOAA owns and/or operates. Before I get to that, There are many countries that have satellites in orbit. NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) has an international and information service known as NOAA Satellite and Information Service International and Interagency Affairs Division. Their mission is to 

build relationships with government organizations around the world. … NESDIS and NOAA could not accomplish all they do without the scientific and data exchange with our partners build on years of cooperation and collaboration.

Some of their important collaborations with other governments for the use of satellite data include but are not limited to Europe, Japan, Taiwan, India, Korea, China, Australia, and Canada. You may read more about these country’s satellites on the NOAA Satellite and Information Service International and Interagency Affairs Division webpage 

NOAA currently owns and operates nine satellites. There are currently four GOES geostationary satellites, all are in geostationary orbit. GOES-16 (aka GOES-R is in orbit as GOES-East while GOES-17 (aka GOES-S) is in orbit as GOES-West. GOES-14 and 15 are spares. Polar orbiting satellites complete 14 orbits from north to south pole per day. The DSCOVR satellite is the Deep Space Climate Observatory, providing valuable information to forecasters for space weather such as solar winds and geomagnetic storms. For more information on these satellites (with some links you can follow for more information on individual satellites) go to NESDIS's currently flying page. You may also want to follow leads elsewhere on the NESDIS page and check out the videos on the NESDIS YouTube Channel (there are a lot of wonderful videos, some very short).

NOAA operates but does not own the following satellites:

• Suomi NPP 
• Jason-3: for more information go to these NOAA sites  here AND here 
• four DMSP satellites
• EWS-G1 satellite

I found this story map done by NOAA NESDIS on their home page (see link in first paragraph). It is a nice story map with maps, videos, pictures and other information. You will learn about the history of the development of satellites and how satellites are used today. I hope that the embed code that I used works for you, if not, you may find the story map at this link on storymaps.arcgis