"The spacecraft appears to be exactly where we wanted it to go," Chuck Dovale, NASA's launch director for the mission said once it was clear that the GOES safely had made it into orbit. "It was a perfect flight."

The nighttime space shot began at 3:07 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (0707 GMT) with the ignition of the Atlas rocket's three main engines, about 41 minutes later than first planned because of some minor launch pad problems that slowed the countdown.

A Lockheed Martin Atlas 2A rocket is seen at Cape Canaveral's pad 36A, lifting off and streaking into orbit in these images from NASA TV. Image files copyright © 2000, SPACE.com, Inc.

Glowing a brilliant orange the intense flames turned the starry sky to a dark shade of blue as the rocket streaked out over the Atlantic Ocean. About 27 minutes later the satellite, known as GOES-L, was released into orbit.

Initial checkout of the satellite began almost immediately. Then flight controllers are to begin a very slow, deliberate process of moving GOES-L into its final orbit and fully deploying and testing its complement of weather sensors and other instruments.

The first test image is expected from the new satellite in about two weeks. Then later this summer meteoroloists plan to use the satellite for about a month to perform a number of experiments they can't do with the three other GOES spacecraft already in orbit.

Somewhere in all of that testing the GOES-L satellite will be declared ready for duty and its name will be changed to GOES 11. After that the newly dubbed GOES 11 will be shut down and put into cold storage until one of its sibling spacecraft fails.

"From there it will be activated when necessary to maintain the two-GOES operational system," said Gerry Dittberner, GOES program manager at NOAA.

Right now GOES 10, which was launched three years ago, is parked over the equator with a great view of the Western United States, the Pacific Ocean and Hawaii. It's working as it is supposed to and is expected to last a few more years.

Hovering over the East Coast, however, is GOES 8. Launched six years ago, it is already one year older than the five years all of these Loral Space and Communications-built satellites are designed to last. And it is showing signs of failing.

"We have had some failures. We are on redundant systems, but (GOES 8 is) giving good data and there's really no way to predict how much longer it will continue," said Martin Davis, GOES project manager for NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

A third satellite, GOES 9, is also in orbit but is considered so unreliable that managers did not want to risk not having two good spacecraft in orbit during the particularly threatening hurricane season which runs from June 1 to November 30.

"If we were to lose the GOES 8 satellite we need to have the GOES 11 in there ready to take its place. It's vitally important that we have continuity of data or we may be finding ourselves impaired in our capability of forecasting for that storm," said William Proenza, director of the National Weather Service in the Southern Region.

Such "impairment" could have catastrophic results for the seaside coasts of North America later this summer if officials cannot accurately track approaching hurricanes and issue timely evacuation orders.

"These warnings will help to save lives and will, of course, preserve property, as well as support the economic well-being of our nation," Proenza said, noting that early models suggest this season is expected to be "what we consider an active season."