“Severe weather was again a major story in America this year,” NOAA Satellite and Information Service Assistant Administrator Mary Kicza said in a statement. “Passing this Mission Critical Design Review gives us confidence that the GOES-R Program’s development is progressing well and will be ready to carry the latest technology to help improve NOAA’s weather forecasts.”

NOAA operates two Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) at all times, with one in orbital storage mode if any experience trouble, to monitor all weather conditions, as well as monitor solar activity, relay a wide variety of environmental data, and detect emergency beacon signals from persons in distress.

The GOES-13, which is NOAA’s GOES East satellite, sent more than 1,200 storm images to NOAA forecasters during Hurricane Sandy from Oct. 20 through 31.

The GOES-R satellites aim to more than double today’s GOES imagery clarity and provide more atmospheric observations with more frequent images. GOES-R will also carry a new Geostationary Lightning Mapper designed to provide continuous surveillance of total lightning activity throughout the Americas and surrounding oceans.