That's good news for meteorologists who have been waiting more than a year to send this particular satellite into space to serve as a backup to two weather satellites already over the United States -- one of which is on the verge of failing. Its failure would leave a wide gap in the ability to track and forecast the position of major storms such as hurricanes.

"It raises the anxiety level," said Martin Davis, project manager for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, expressing the desire to get this satellite, known as GOES L, into orbit as quickly as possible before the hurricane season officially begins on June 1.

NASA manages the procurement and launch of GOES spacecraft for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Once the GOES L satellite is in orbit, tested and ready to begin work, NOAA officials will re-designate the satellite GOES 11 and put the satellite into storage until one of the two remaining satellites -- either GOES 10 over the West Coast or GOES 8 over the East Coast -- fails. Officials say it is extremely likely that GOES 8 will fail first, but they're not sure when.

Another satellite, GOES 9, also is in orbit but only partially working, so weather officials don't want to rely on it to provide full coverage in case of an emergency.

"If we were to lose the GOES 8 satellite we need to have the GOES 11 in there ready to take its place," said William Proenza, director of NOAA's National Weather Service office for the Southern Region. "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."

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 the early models suggest this hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, is expected to be "what we consider an active season."

GOES managers originally had planned to launch this spacecraft in 1999, but technical problems with the type of rocket engines used on the Atlas 2 and other boosters prompted NASA and NOAA officials to delay the launch until they could be sure the engines were fixed.

As a result, GOES L has spent the past year in storage at a satellite-processing facility near the air station. Government officials could not reveal their cost because of court proceedings that will determine whether the government or Atlas contractors should pay those delay-related fees, said Gerry Dittberner, GOES program manager for NOAA.