OTD In Space - October 16: NASA Launches 1st GOES Weather Satellite

On this day, in space. In 1975, NASA launched the first operational GOES satellite. GOES-A was the first in a series of weather satellites that NASA jointly operates with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. The name is short for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. GOES-A launched on a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral. GOES satellites all have a geostationary orbit, which means that they always face the same part of Earth, in this case, the Indian Ocean. Once GOES-A became operational, it was renamed GOES-1. And that's what happened on this day in space.