Voice from launch control room: LC (Launch Conductor), this is the LD (Launch Director), we are go for launch!

NASA KSC Commentator George Diller (VO): ...and lift of the Delta IV rocket with GOES-O...

Voices of commentators overlapping (montage): We are at Kennedy Space Center...Today is June 27...NASA will launch the next GOES satellite on a Delta IV rocket... GOES-O has a critical role in helping predict severe weather...

Music

Silvia Stoyanova/NASA Goddard TV Producer: Exactly a month ago on June 27th, NASA launched a new and improved a new and improved weather satellite called GOES-O. Now that GOES-O is safely into its orbit, it has been renamed to GOES-14. Today, I am at NOAA's Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, MD, where NASA and NOAA will be releasing the very first image from GOES-14. One of the things that GOES-14 will be doing is providing weather forecasters with images with greater stability and resolution.

So, let's go in and see the first image and talk to NOAA meteorologist Tom Renkevens about it.

Tom Renkevens/NOAAUser Services Coordinator (VO): We are seeing the first visible image from GOES-14 here in Suitland, National Satellite Operations Facility launch control room. We see some thunderstorms in the Oklahoma, Texas area that have been dropping an inch or two of rain for today. Some thunderstorms off the East Coast, we are seeing. As we see more and more of the Atlantic ocean coming in to the right side of the screen, we see absence of tropical activity; very quiet this year...

Silvia Stoyanova/NASA Goddard TV Producer: So, what is exciting about today? What are we seeing in the background?

Tom Renkevens/NOAAUser Services Coordinator (VO): Well, today, for the first time we see a full disk image. It took 30 minutes to come in and it's exciting; it's the very first full disk image from the satellite that just launched nearly a month ago.

Silvia Stoyanova/NASA Goddard TV Producer: So, how high is the resolution of this image?

Tom Renkevens/NOAAUser Services Coordinator (VO): The resolution, for the visible pixels, you can one kilometer pixels on the ground, which is equates to if you are standing 7 football fields away and you are trying to take a picture of a dime so seeing those images of one kilometer, you can really focus on seeing forest fires, snow fall, hurricane tracking, severe weather tracking from far away in space.

Silvia Stoyanova/NASA Goddard TV Producer: You said far away in space, then how does this satellite take these stable images?

Tom Renkevens/NOAAUser Services Coordinator (VO): It's over 22,000 miles away from Earth and to get stable images; there are star trackers on board this very sophisticated spacecraft. So, when you look at a series of images, you can see the clouds and features move but the land beneath it stays stable.

Silvia Stoyanova/NASA Goddard TV Producer: Do you recall any very exciting images from the previous GOES missions, can you tell me a little bit?

Tom Renkevens/NOAAUser Services Coordinator (VO): Several years ago I do recall hurricane Katrina, it was very impressive satellite imagery, and that picture got the word out. Helped hurricane forecasters and helped the general public realize and identify this very severe situation on hand and helped get the word out for people to evacuate. So seeing those pictures of hurricane Katrina and other hurricanes or severe weather, really gets the message across of the importance of the weather.

Silvia Stoyanova/NASA Goddard TV Producer: So, you must feel like you are part of something making a difference.

Tom Renkevens/NOAAUser Services Coordinator (VO): We sure are, we are definitely making a difference every day providing these great images to the public.

Silvia Stoyanova/NASA Goddard TV Producer: Thank you, Tom. For NASA Goddard Television, this is Silvia Stoyanova.