According to Webster’s Dictionary the word "retire" says in part, "to withdraw or go away." Unfortunately that is exactly what one of our weather satellites is doing this week. GOES-7 was one of the earliest geostationary satellites and has been in service for 20 years capturing pictures of hurricanes such as Andrew or Katrina. I like to think of these instruments as the "set of eyes" for the meteorologist scanning the Earth’s atmosphere and seeing things no other device can see. In this case retirement means pushing the satellite into a higher orbit where it will not interfere with other operational satellites. It should be noted that we still have two other satellites providing continuous coverage of the Western Hemisphere. The next generation of weather satellites is set to begin launching in 2015 and these new instruments are expected to double the clarity of today’s weather pictures. In addition, they will provide more observations and more frequent images than ever before.
