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US weather satellite series

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), operated by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service division, supports weather forecasting, severe storm tracking, and meteorology research. Spacecraft and ground based elements of the system work together to provide a continuous stream of environmental data. The National Weather Service (NWS) and the Meteorological Service of Canada use the GOES system for their North American weather monitoring and forecasting operations, and scientific researchers use the data to better understand land, atmosphere, ocean, and climate dynamics. The GOES system uses geosynchronous equatorial satellites that, since the launch of SMS 1 in 1974, have been a basic element of U. S. weather monitoring and forecasting. The procurement, design, and manufacture of GOES satellites is overseen by NASA. NOAA is the official provider of both GOES terrestrial data and GOES space weather data. Data can also be accessed using the SPEDAS software.

Several GOES satellites are still in orbit but are either inactive or have been re purposed. Although GOES 3 ceased to be used for weather operations in 1989, it spent over 20 years as a critical part of communications between the U. S. and Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station before being decommissioned in 2016. Geostationary satellites expend fuel to keep themselves stationary over the equator, and thus cannot normally ordinarily be seen from the poles. When that fuel is depleted, solar and lunar perturbations increase the satellite's inclination so that its ground track begins to describe an analemma (a figure 8 in the north south direction). This usually ends the satellite's primary mission. However, when the inclination is high enough the satellite may begin to rise above the polar horizons at the extremes of the figure 8, as was the case for GOES 3. A nine meter dish was constructed at the station, and communication with the satellite could be obtained for about five hours per day. Data rates were around 2.048 megabytes/second (bi directional) under optimum conditions. GOES 8, which was designated GOES I before orbiting, was the GOES East satellite when it was in operation. It is in a parking orbit and is drifting westerly at a rate of about 4° daily. It was decommissioned on 1 April 2003 and deactivated on 5 May 2004 after the failure of its propulsion system. GOES 10, which was designated GOES K before orbiting, was decommissioned on 2 December 2009 and was boosted to a graveyard orbit. It no longer had the fuel for required maneuvers to keep it on station. GOES 11, which was designated GOES L before orbiting, had a partial failure on 6 December 2011. It was decommissioned on 16 December 2011 and boosted into a graveyard orbit. GOES 12, which was designated GOES M before orbiting, was decommissioned on 16 August 2013 and boosted into a graveyard orbit. GOES 13, which was designated GOES N before orbiting, was decommissioned on 3 January 2018 and boosted into storage orbit. It was transferred to the U. S. Space Force and positioned at 61.5ºE under the new name EWS G1. Following three years of monitoring the Indian Ocean, EWS G1 was retired on 31 October 2023 when EWS G2 (formerly GOES 15) took over. GOES 15, which was designated GOES P before orbiting, was launched successfully on 4 March 2010. From 2011 to 2018, it occupied the GOES West position at 135°W over the Pacific Ocean. It moved eastward to 128° W beginning on 29 October 2018 in order to make room for GOES 17, which took over the GOES West position on 10 December 2018. GOES 15 operated in tandem with GOES 17 for some time, but was retired in early 2020 and moved to a parking orbit. GOES 15 was temporarily returned to operational status in August 2020 to fill a gap in the sensor capabilities of GOES 17 due to a hardware issue. Like GOES 13, GOES 15 was then transferred to the U. S. Space Force and renamed EWS G2 to monitor the Indian Ocean until approximately 2030.

Designed to operate in geostationary orbit above the Earth, the GOES spacecraft continuously view the continental United States, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, Central America, South America, and southern Canada. The three axis, body stabilized design enables the sensors to "stare" at the Earth and thus more frequently image clouds, monitor the Earth's surface temperature and water vapour fields, and sound the atmosphere for its vertical thermal and vapor structures. The evolution of atmospheric phenomena can be followed, ensuring real time coverage of meteorological events such as severe local storms and tropical cyclones. The importance of this capability was proven during hurricanes Hugo (1989) and Andrew (1992). The GOES spacecraft also enhance operational services and improve support for atmospheric science research, numerical weather prediction models, and environmental sensor design and development. Satellite data is broadcast on the L band, and received at the NOAA Command and Data Acquisition ground station at Wallops Island, Virginia from which it is disseminated to users. Additionally, anyone may receive data directly from the satellites by utilizing a small dish, and processing the data with special software. The GOES satellites are controlled from the Satellite Operations Control Center in Suitland, Maryland. During significant weather or other events, the normal schedules can be altered to provide the coverage requested by the NWS and other agencies. GOES 12 and above also have provided a platform for the Solar X Ray Imager (SXI) and space environment monitoring (SEM) instruments. The SXI provides high cadence monitoring of large scale solar structures to support the Space Environment Services Center's (SESC) mission. The SXI unit on GOES 13, however, was damaged by a solar flare in 2006. The SESC, as the nation's "space weather" service, receives, monitors, and interprets a wide variety of solar terrestrial data. It also issues reports, alerts, and forecasts for special events such as solar flares or geomagnetic storms. This information is important to the operation of military and civilian radio wave and satellite communication and navigation systems. The information also is important to electric power networks, the missions of geophysical explorers, Space Station astronauts, high altitude aviators, and scientific researchers. The SEM measures the effect of the Sun on the near Earth solar terrestrial electromagnetic environment, providing real time data to the SESC.

The main mission of a GOES satellite is carried out by the primary payload instruments, which are the Imager and the Sounder. The Imager is a multichannel instrument that senses infrared radiant energy and visible reflected solar energy from the Earth's surface and atmosphere. The Sounder provides data for vertical atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles, surface and cloud top temperature, and ozone distribution. GOES also offers the Data Collection System, a ground based meteorological platform satellite data collection and relay service. Other instruments on board the spacecraft are the SEM set, which consists of a magnetometer, an X ray sensor, a high energy proton and alpha particle detector, and an energetic particles sensor. The GOES N series (GOES 13 through GOES 15) spacecraft also have a sun pointed extreme ultraviolet sensor. In addition, the GOES satellites carry a search and rescue repeater that collects data from Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons and Emergency Locator Transmitter beacons, which are used during search and rescue operations by the U. S. Air Force Rescue Coordination Center.

Before being launched, GOES satellites are designated by letters (A, B, C, etc.). Once a GOES satellite is launched successfully, it is redesignated with a number (1, 2, 3, etc.). So, GOES A to GOES F became GOES 1 to GOES 6. Because GOES G was a launch failure, it never received a number. GOES H to GOES R became GOES 7 to GOES 16 (skipping GOES Q, which was not built). Once operational, the different locations used by the satellites are given a name corresponding to the regions they cover. These are GOES East and GOES West, which watch the eastern and western halves of the U. S., respectively. GOES East is occupied by GOES 16, while GOES West is occupied by GOES 17. The East/ West designation is used more frequently than the satellite's number designation. GOES IO (Indian Ocean), a new designation revealed in early May 2020, is currently occupied by GOES 13 (DOD 1). There was also a GOES South position, which is meant to provide dedicated coverage of South America. Before the GOES R series became operational, unless a satellite was dedicated to this continent, imagery of South America was updated every 3 hours instead of every 30 minutes. The GOES South station was usually assigned to older satellites whose North American operations have been taken over by new satellites. For example, GOES 10 was moved from the GOES West position to GOES South after it was replaced in the West station by GOES 11. When GOES 10 was decommissioned on 1 December 2009, GOES South was taken over by GOES 12. Since the retirement of GOES 12 on 16 August 2013, the GOES South station has been unoccupied. GOES 16 has since made the need for a dedicated GOES South satellite obsolete; as of 2019, the satellite produces full disk images every 10 minutes.

In September 2006, NOAA reduced the planned number of GOES R satellites from four to two because of cost overrun concerns. The planned delivery schedule was also slowed down to reduce costs. The expected cost of the series is $7.69 billion, a $670 million increase from the prior $7 billion estimate. The contract for constructing the satellites and manufacturing the magnetometer, SUVI, and GLM was awarded to Lockheed Martin. This award was challenged by losing bidder Boeing; however, the protest was subsequently dismissed. The ABI instrument was delivered by L3Harris (formerly ITT Exelis). The SEISS was delivered by Assurance Technology Corporation. XRS and EUVS are being combined into the Extreme Ultra Violet and X Ray Irradiance Sensors (EXIS), which was delivered by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics of the University of Colorado. The contract for the ground system, including data processing, was awarded to a team led by the Weather Systems division of L3Harris, including subcontracts to Boeing, Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER), Honeywell, Carr Astronautics, Wyle Laboratories, and Ares.