<P> In September 2006, the HES was canceled . </P> <P> Before being launched, GOES satellites are designated by letters (A, B, C, etc .). Once a GOES satellite is launched successfully, it is redesignated with a number (1, 2, 3, etc .). So, GOES - A to GOES - F became GOES - 1 to GOES - 6 . Because GOES - G was a launch failure, it never received a number . GOES - H to GOES - R became GOES - 7 to GOES - 16 (skipping GOES - Q, which was not built). </P> <P> Once operational, the different locations used by the satellites are given a name corresponding to the regions they cover . These are GOES - East and GOES - West, which watch the eastern and western halves of the U.S., respectively . GOES - East is occupied by GOES - 13, while GOES - West is occupied by GOES - 15 . The - East / - West designation is used more frequently than the satellite's number designation . </P> <P> There is also a GOES - South position, which is meant to provide dedicated coverage of South America . Unless a satellite is dedicated to this continent, imagery of South America is updated every 3 hours instead of every 30 minutes whenever a storm occurs in North America, which is roughly 40 percent of the time during the hurricane season . The GOES - South station is usually assigned to older satellites whose North American operations have been taken over by new satellites . For example, GOES - 10 was moved from the GOES - West position to GOES - South after it was replaced in the - West station by GOES - 11 . When GOES - 10 was decommissioned on 1 December 2009, GOES - South was taken over by GOES - 12 . Since the retirement of GOES - 12 on 16 August 2013, the GOES - South station has been unoccupied . It is possible that the - South position will be filled by GOES - 13 once the GOES - 16 satellite takes over the GOES - East position, which is scheduled for December 2017 . </P>

National weather service nasa geostationary operational environmental satellite