SPACEPHOTOS

(01/11/1999) --- With the light casting a rosy glow in a specially built clean room at Astrotech, Titusville, Fla., Loral technician Roberto Caballero tests the deployment of the sounder instrument's cooler cover door on the GOES-L weather satellite. The sounder, one of two meteorological instruments on the satellite, measures temperature and moisture in a vertical column of air from the satellite to Earth. Its findings will help forecast weather. GOES-L, which is to be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Station aboard an Atlas II rocket in late March, is the fourth of a new advanced series of geostationary weather satellites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is a three-axis inertially stabilized spacecraft that will provide pictures as well as perform the atmospheric sounding. Once launched, the satellite, to be designated GOES-11, will undergo checkout and provide backup capabilities for the existing, aging GOES East weather satellite