SLS engineers worked with the NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) to deploy a Jupiter Portable Lightning Instrumentation (PLI) System within the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 41. During pre-launch operations, the PLI measured electromagnetic fields immediately adjacent to the GOES-S spacecraft in addition to transient currents on the vehicle umbilicals. SLS also deployed a Jupiter OLS optical lightning monitoring system at a camera site located about a half mile from Launch Complex 41 to provide 24/7 high-speed video coverage of all lightning activity occurring in the vicinity of the launch pad. GOES-S successfully launched on March 1, 2018, aboard an Atlas V rocket. The spacecraft is the second of four NOAA next-generation weather monitoring satellites in the approximately $11 billion network.
