NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) mission is to satisfy national operational environmental requirements for 24-hour observations of weather, Earth's environment, and the solar and space environments, and to contribute to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. The GOES-R series is being developed to replace the GOES-N series. GOES-R will have significant improvement in technology over the GOES-I and GOES-N series. The Imager will have: 5X improvement in geographic coverage rate; 30-second repeats for severe weather threats; 4X improvement in horizontal resolution; and 3X increase in channels. The Sounder is expected to have: 5X improvement in geographic coverage rate; 4-minute repeats for severe weather threats; and 3X improvements in vertical resolution. The satellite will also have the ability to detect lightning and monitor coastal waters. Several GOES-R contractors have been selected. System Program Definition and Risk Reduction will be performed by Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop-Grumman. The System Acquisition Contract will be competitively awarded in August 2007. Instrument contracts have been awarded to ITT for the Advanced Baseline Imager and to BAE, Ball Aerospace, and Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center for the Hyperspectral Environmental Suite.