GOES 13 Placed in Standby Mode

On Sept. 23, GOES 13, the east based stationary weather satellite experienced what NOAA is calling an "anomaly," causing NOAA to place the satellite in "standby" mode, basically rendering the satellite inoperable for all practical purposes. Until engineers and and scientist can determine what has actually happened and what can be done to correct the issue, it will remain in standby.

If you go to my satellite page you'll notice some east based images and loops will not display any images. The GOES-15 (GOES-West) satellite was then placed into Full Disk scan mode, supplying images to cover as much of the eastern US and adjacent offshore waters as possible at 30-minute intervals.

GOES 14 has been taken out of standby and moved eastward in the meantime, in order to help cover both the east and west sides of the country, although it is still located at 105 degrees west (the normal GOES East view is normally located at 75 degrees west). The latest message from NOAA is below: 

"GOES-14 product processing and distribution continues to be nominal. No new impacts due to the GOES-13 anomaly and GOES-14 activation. Routine and rapid scan (RSO) imaging schedules are available for GOES-14. GOES-14 is stationary at 105 degrees West with no current plans to drift east. GOES-13 remains in an Earth pointing nominal attitude with the Imager and Sounder in Standby modes while the September 23 anomaly is being investigated. No estimate on return to operations at this time. Cause and corrective actions are under investigation. Engineers and managers are also discussing the results from the test data analysis and future way forward."

Here is a summary of what happened as written up on Monday from a NOAA engineer:

• GOES-13 sounder fault tripped early Sunday morning, shutting down the sounder (recall... it was getting noisy)
• In consultation with ITT, and Boeing, engineers turned off GOES-13 imager last evening in order to prevent any damage.
• GOES-15 was put in full disk mode for more geographic coverage (not sure if the GINI's are handling this as designed with the GINILOOKEAST/WEST commands...  I have email out to our AWIPS GINI folks to check...)
• GOES-14, which is out of storage and has been imaging for GOES-R research, will be put in a GOES-East type of scan (looks like that is getting close as of this morning - see http://www.ssec.wisc...goes14&file=jpg   We are working on getting GOES-14 data into N-AWIPS, it is on McIDAS ADDE)
• GOES-15 data is being broadcast via GOES-13 GVAR... so products, remappers, etc... that look at GOES-East sectors and are making products, are making them off of GOES-15... this may be an issue... especially with NCEP data assimilation
• Depending on status later, there may be decisions to put GOES-14 imager and sounder data through the GOES-13 GVAR stream to get users more east coast looking data, and putting GOES-15 back in normal scans.  If this happens, there may be product creation challenges with new satellite?  (science test worked out ok, I just don't know all the hoops that may be  needed to use a new satellite this quickly)
• GOES-12 is available via SSEC data servers, and SAB is using this for some volcano work since the data are covering South America
• I sent email to NCEP NCO and EMC folks to discuss assimilation issues of GOES-14 or GOES-15 via the GOES-East data flows.

In essence GOES 14 will be the temporary fix.

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