NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) program grew out of the successful use of geostationary weather satellites with the experimental SMS -1 and SMS-2, launched in 1974 and 1975, respectively. The geostationary experiment began in 1966. GOES was developed and launched by NASA, but once the program became operational, was turned over to NOAA for day-to-day administration. The early satellites observed the Earth only 10 percent of the time and monitored cataclysmic weather events. The current series of satellites, GOES-8 through -12, provide simultaneous imaging and sounding 100 percent of the time. GOES-N (renamed GOES-13), the first in a new series, GOES-N through -P, was launched in May 2006. It has improved pointing accuracy and an upgraded power subsystem, which will significantly reduce eclipse period outages. GOES-R will provide significant increases in quantity and quality of data. In addition to GOES-13, NOAA has two operational GOES satellites, an on-orbit spare, and one back-up satellite. GOES plays a major role in the Integrated Global Observing system. NOAA is also an important component of the Group on Earth Observations, which has membership from 60 countries and 43 international organizations.