The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) GOES-T, the third in a series of four advanced geostationary weather satellites, blasted into orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket on March 1 from Cape Canaveral, Fla. GOES-T’s mission managers confirmed that its solar arrays successfully deployed at 8:28 p.m. EST, and the satellite was operating on its own power.

GOES-T will track destructive wildfires, lightning, Pacific Ocean-based storms, dense fog and other hazards that threaten the U.S. West Coast, Hawaii and Alaska. It will also monitor solar activity and space weather to provide early warnings of disruptions to power grids, communications and navigation systems.