GOES-19 Weather Satellite Enters Safe Hold Mode Amid Operational Concerns
The NOAA GOES-19 weather satellite has unexpectedly entered Safe Hold mode, triggering immediate monitoring by the Space Weather Prediction Center. This precautionary measure halts normal operations to protect the spacecraft while engineers investigate the cause. Updates on the satellite's status and potential impacts on weather forecasting are being tracked closely by the Office of Satellite and Product Operations.
Updates can be found at the Office of Satellite and Product Operations home page as they become available.
- dabluecaboose
Former GOES engineer here. At this point I'd almost be surprised if 19 didn't have something go wrong. We had issues on almost every other satellite. GOES-17 had the loop heat pipe anomaly(Supposedly from someone stepping on it in the cleanroom...), GOES-15 (IIRC) had a micrometeorite strike, and GOES-13 had a fuel tank anomaly right before deorbit.
GOES-16 and GOES-17 are on-orbit spares, so in the extremely unlikely event of a total failure there's at least another spacecraft on-orbit ready to take up station.
That said, I have every faith in the GOES team to get to the bottom of this. They're the best, and I often wish I was back there working with them.
- dlgeek
From the latest update (https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/operations/goes/status.html#datafi...), it looks like they're already restoring systems.
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Update #3: DCS and SAR have returned to service as of 1630Z. Engineers will now work to restore ABI and expect imaging to resume by 1900Z. Image navigation may be slightly degraded for the first hour after imaging starts. The GOES-19 instruments will be restored in the following order:
ABI
GLM
SUVI
CCOR-1/EXIS/MAG/SEISS
The recovery process to return all GOES-19 instruments to normal operations is projected to take approximately 8 hours.
Update #2: The GOES-19 Safehold has been resolved and engineers are working to prepare for restart of the onboard instruments. More information on the recovery timeline will be provided when known.
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- ImJasonH
https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/weather-satellite-goes-1... explains a bit more what this is, and what this means.
> The main NOAA satellite for tracking Atlantic, Gulf Coast hurricanes is out until further notice
> GOES-19 is the main instrument used to identify tropical waves as they strengthen and move over the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, providing real-time tracking for forecasting.
- dekhn
I love how "safe mode" for a satellite is basically: "extend solar panels, turn self towards sun, don't do anything unnecessary, wait for further instructions".
- Uncle_Brumpus
Interestingly, I noticed this in aproximately real time. I had been checking up on the visible-light geocolor composite images every hour or so to look at the massive plume of Canadian wildfire smoke that was turning the skies in the northeast dark orange yesterday.
I haven't interacted with the GOES site or cared too much about the image output until the last 2 days, and the it immediately broke. Somewhat humorous to me.