It was originally built for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as part of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system,[5] and was launched in June 1978.

[6] It was positioned in geostationary orbit, from where it was initially used for weather forecasting in the United States.

GOES-3 was decommissioned 29 June 2016 at the Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing facility in Miami, Florida.

[7] GOES-3 was built by Ford Aerospace, and was based on the satellite bus developed for the SMS programme.

[2] The launch occurred at 10:49 GMT (5:49 a.m. local time) on 16 June 1978, just two minutes short of a year after the previous satellite, GOES-2.