Hurricanes Michael, Dorian, Ian, Nicole and Idalia have all been stared down by one of the NOAA's most powerful satellites since it took its place in geostationary orbit in late 2017. Its replacement is gearing up for launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy later this month.

The GOES-U satellite is the 19th Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite in the NOAA and NASA partnership since the first one launched in 1975. It's the fourth and final of the latest version of the satellites. The first three are already parked at more than 22,000 miles altitude and have their wide-view sites set to track tropical weather, fires, lightning and other dangerous weather on Earth.

The final satellite sits in a stark, white clean room at Astrotech Space Operations' payload processing facility just across the river from Kennedy Space Center. It's already fueled and awaits encapsulation in a SpaceX fairing before heading to KSC for launch. Liftoff is slated for June 25 at 5:16 p.m. during a two-hour window atop what will be the first Falcon Heavy launch of the year.

All four satellites are part of what NOAA calls the GOES-R series, the most powerful satellites for weather forecasting.

While roboticists have developed increasingly sophisticated systems over the past decades, ensuring that these systems can autonomously operate in real-world settings without mishaps often proves challenging. This is particularly difficult when these robots are designed to be deployed in complex environments, including space and other planets.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow recently developed a new methodology that could allow teams of multiple rovers to autonomously and reliably explore other planets. This method, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, incorporates data derived from various sources, including imaging data, maps and information collected by sensors, to plan efficient routes for different robots in a team.

"Using a team of planetary exploration rovers to explore the Martian surface, rather than a single rover, could greatly extend the scientific capabilities of a mission," Sarah Swinton, first author of the paper, told Tech Xplore.