Geostationary Satellite Coverages

This is an illustration of the geographical area covered by the METEOSAT satellite.

This is the European satellite that is normally stationed over the Greenwich meridian ( 0 degrees longitude). The current satellite in this series is Meteosat-5.

METEOSAT is operated by EUMETSAT. Images from this satellite are now encrypted, with EUMETSAT attempting to sell commercial licenses for use of the imagery.

This is an illustration of the geographical area observed by the GOES-EAST satellite.

This is the U.S. satellite, currently GOES-8, that is operationally positioned at 75 degrees west longitude. The satellite was launched on April 13, 1994 and became operational on June 1, 1995 after an extensive test and validation effort.

GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite.

This is an illustration of the geographical area observed by the GOES-WEST satellite.

This is the U.S. satellite, currently GOES-9, that is operationally positioned at 135 degrees west longitude. The satellite was launched on May 23, 1995 and became operational on January 22, 1996.

GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite.

This is an illustration of the geographical area observed by the GMS satellite.

This is the Japanese satellite, currently GMS-5, that is operationally positioned at 140 degrees east longitude, over Australia and Japan. GMS-5 was launched in the sprint of 1995 and became operational in June, 1995.

The official acronym for this satellite, GMS, stands for Geostationary Meteorological Satellite. These satellites are also sometimes referred to under the name himawari, meaning "sunflower".

This is an illustration of the geographical area that be covered by FENGYUN-2 satellite.

After launch, now scheduled for early 1997, this satellite will be the first Chinese meteorological satellite in geostationary orbit. Plans call for it to be positioned at 105 degrees east longitude.

In 1994 the first model of this spacecraft, FY-2A, was lost in an accident that destroyed both the rocket and the satellite. Fengyun literally means "wind cloud", or with a somewhat free translation, "weather". The Fengyun-1 series of satellites are polar orbiting satellites, so it is important to include the number with the name if you want to refer to the geostationary satellite.

PROPOSED

This is an illustration of the geographical area covered by the ELEKTRO satellite.

This is the Russian satellite that is located at 76 degrees east longitude. The satellite reached geostationary orbit in November 1994, but has not yet produced reliable operational imagery. The major difficulties are reportedly concentrated in the visible sensor and it is anticipated (?) that infrared data should become operationally available in 1996.

This satellite is also knows GOMS, or Geosynchronous Operational Meteorological Satellite.

QUESTIONABLE

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