I have to admit to not being much of a GOES user.  Most of what I do doesn’t depend much on the kind of data we have traditionally gotten from geosynchronous satellites.  But, I am excited for the GOES-R launch tomorrow.  Assuming everything goes as planned, the Atlas rocket carrying GOES-R will lift off from its pad in Florida and carry the satellite out to an orbit 36,000km above the equator where it will officially become GOES-16.  From there, GOES-16 will start taking pictures of Earth in incredibly fine detail, mapping lightning, measuring activity on the sun, and in Earth’s magnetic field.  This data will form the backbone of a new generation of American Earth/Space/Sun weather observations.  Godspeed, GOES-R!