NASA… Down + In “Storage” (Satellite)

[SatNews] On May 22, 2013, GOES-East, a key weather satellite that observes the eastern part of the United States stopped working normally. After initial efforts to revive the satellite failed, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) engineers have put the satellite in storage mode for troubleshooting. Losing one of the two geostationary weather satellites that National Weather Service meteorologists rely upon could have serious consequences at any time, but that is especially true with the 2013 hurricane season just around the corner. Fortunately, NOAA had planned ahead. The agency always keeps a “spare” satellite in orbit, ready to spring into action when problems arise. On May 23, the spare satellite—GOES 14—was active and had started to acquire images.

When GOES-East experienced a similar technical problem in September 2012, NASA published the image above showing the field of view of all three weather satellites. GOES-15, which has served as GOES-West since December 2011, is on the left and orbits at 135 degrees West; GOES-14, the spare, is in the middle and resides at 105 degrees West. GOES-13, the malfunctioning satellite that has served as GOES-East since April 2010, is on the right and sits at 75 degrees West. The top row of images shows visible images acquired by the three satellites on September 15, 2012. The lower row shows the field of view of each satellite.