An advanced weather satellite rocketed into space as part of an $11 billion effort to revolutionize forecasting.

The GOES-R spacecraft will track U.S. weather including hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, volcanic ash clouds, wildfires, lightning storms, even solar flares.

With improved details and accuracy obtained from the satellite, forecasters will get information faster, possibly increasing the amount of reporting time in case of a weather event.

Weather forecasters will get information faster.Weather forecasters will get information faster.The first in a series of four satellites, GOES-R hitched a ride on an unmanned Atlas V rocket. NOAA teamed up with NASA for the mission.

The satellite—valued by NOAA at $1 billion—is aiming for a 22,300-mile-high equatorial orbit. There, it will join three aging spacecraft with 40-year-old technology, and become known as GOES-16. After months of testing, this newest satellite will take over for one of the older ones. The second satellite in the series will follow in 2018. All told, the series should stretch to 2036.

GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. The first was launched in 1975.

Typically, the satellite will churn out full images of the Western Hemisphere every 15 minutes and the continental United States every five minutes. Specific storm regions will be updated every 30 seconds.

A first-of-its-kind lightning mapper will take 500 snapshots a second.

This next-generation GOES program—$11 billion in all—includes four satellites, an extensive land system of satellite dishes and other equipment, and new methods for crunching the stream of expected data.

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