Category: Weather & Climate

NOAA’s GOES-5 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit over 85 degrees west longitude on Earth, a position which will change several times over GOES-5’s career until 1988, allowing it to monitor weather over the continental United States and Europe. GOES-5’s primary set of “eyes” will fail in 1984, forcing NOAA to return GOES-1 and GOES-4 to service until a replacement can be launched in 1987. Its usefulness as a weather satellite at an end, GOES-5 will be boosted into a graveyard orbit in 1990.

NASA launches Landsat 4, the fourth Landsat Earth resource observation satellite and the first to be redesigned from the ground up (previous Landsats had been based on NASA’s Nimbus satellites from the 1960s and ’70s). For the first time, Landsat data processing and distribution is handled by another government agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, which partners with NASA on all future Landsat satellites. Landsat 4 is the first Landsat to link up to NASA’s TDRS (Tracking & Data Relay Satellite) system, thus enabling real-time data transmission to Earth even when Landsat 4 isn’t passing over a ground station. Landsat 4 remains operational through the end of 1993.

NOAA’s GOES-6 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit over 135 degrees west longitude on Earth, a position which will change several times over GOES-5’s career until 1988, allowing it to monitor weather over the continental United States and Europe. GOES-5’s primary set of “eyes” will fail in 1989, leaving GOES-7 as the sole working GOES weather satellite until the mid-1990s. Even while “blind”, GOES-5 will serve as a communications relay satellite until its boost to “graveyard” orbit and shutdown in 1992.

NASA launches Earth resource observation satellite Landsat 5, virtually identical to the Landsat 4 satellite launched in 1982. Like Landsat 4, Landsat 5 is capable of sending real-time data to Earth through the Tracking & Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) system. Landsat 5 becomes the longest-operating Earth observation satellite, outliving its anticipated three-year design life by a factor of ten and not becoming inoperable until 2013; by the time it was shut down, Landsats 7 and 8 had been launched. Among the events Landsat 5 witnessed from orbit were a tsunami that killed nearly a quarter million people along Indonesia’s coastlines in 2004, and the 1986 meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Soviet Union.

NOAA’s GOES-G Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral, intended to replace the failed GOES-5 satellite in a geosynchronous orbit over Earth’s western hemisphere. But an electrical fault destroys GOES-G’s Delta booster in flight, and the rocket explodes 71 seconds into its flight. This is NASA’s first attempt to launch a rocket since the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster earlier in 1986, raising new questions about the space agency’s reliability and safety record.

NOAA’s GOES-7 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit now designated GOES-EAST to monitor weather patterns over the United States. Originally intended for a 1986 launch, GOES-7 has been kept on the ground by the investigation into the destruction just after launch of its predecessor, GOES-G. GOES-7 will become the first of the GOES satellites to operate in both the GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST orbits, and will be retired from active weather-watching duty in 1999, becoming a communications relay satellite until it is decommissioned in 2012.

NOAA’s GOES-8 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit now designated GOES-EAST to monitor weather patterns over the United States; its predecessor, GOES-7, takes up the GOES-WEST position. GOES-8 is a major design evolution in the GOES weather satellite series, incorporating new hardware, some of which proves to be less sturdy than is required for an extensive orbital tour of duty. GOES-8 will remain in the GOES-EAST orbit until it is retired from active weather-watching duty in 2003 and shut down in 2004.

NOAA’s GOES-9 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit now designated GOES-EAST to monitor weather patterns over the United States; its predecessor, GOES-8, remains in orbit in the GOES-WEST position. GOES-9’s hardware configuration is identical to that of GOES-8, and both suffer minor glitches which will be corrected prior to launch in the GOES-10 satellite. GOES-9 will remain in the GOES-EAST orbit until it is retired from active weather-watching duty in 1998 due to those hardware problems, though it will be pressed back into served and leased to Japan to replace one of that country’s weather satellites between 2003 and 2005. GOES-9 will finally be retired in 2007.

NOAA’s GOES-10 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit to monitor weather patterns over the United States. GOES-10 suffers significant hardware issues upon reaching orbit, including the failure of sun-tracking sensors to orient its solar panels, and it will be over a year before it is pressed into operational service in the GOES-WEST orbit by the failure of GOES-9’s attitude control system. GOES-10 will operate there until 2006, when, upon the launch of GOES-11, it takes up a new position, GOES-SOUTH, monitoring South America and watching for Atlantic Ocean hurricane and tropical storm formation. It will be briefly moved back into the GOES-EAST orbit in late 2007, and with just enough maneuvering fuel left to boost it, it will finally be retired to the above-geostationary “graveyard” orbit in 2009.

After over a year of launch delays, NOAA’s GOES-11 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into geosynchronous orbit to monitor weather patterns over the United States. It will be held in reserve until 2006, when it will be moved to the GOES-WEST position to replace GOES-10, which is nearly out of fuel. The longevity of its predecessor means that GOES-11 doesn’t begin its active daily weather-watching until a year after the end of its projected five-year design lifespan, and GOES-12 will actually go active before GOES-11. GOES-11 will remain in service through the end of 2011, when it will boost itself into a higher-than-geostationary “graveyard” orbit and shut down.

NOAA’s GOES-12 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into geosynchronous orbit to monitor weather patterns over the United States. It will be held in reserve until 2003, when it will be moved to the GOES-EAST position to replace GOES-8, which is nearly out of fuel. Though GOES-11 has been in orbit longer than GOES-12, this satellite is activated first to use a solar imaging instrument (which will fail in 2006). Once in its active position, GOES-12 suffers from chronic thruster problems due to errors made during wiring of its primary and backup maneuvering thrusters; one outage will prove to be severe enough that the still-active GOES-10 must cover GOES-EAST coverage. In 2008, another thruster glitch will cause GOES-12 to temporarily lose all attitude control. In 2010, GOES-13 will replace GOES-12 in the GOES-EAST orbit thanks to the continued attitude control issues; GOES-12 remains in orbit as a backup.

NOAA’s GOES-13 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into geosynchronous orbit to monitor weather patterns over the United States. It will be held in reserve until 2010, when it will be moved to the GOES-EAST position to replace GOES-12, which is suffering chronic attitude control thruster glitches. GOES-13 is yet another evolutionary step up in the GOES satellite hardware, but it will suffer its own share of hardware issues, including a series of inexplicable faults which will cause brief losses of weather coverage, and a later fault which disables infrared imaging capability. Some of these hardware failures will be attributed to micrometeoroid collisions.

NOAA’s GOES-14 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into geosynchronous orbit to monitor weather patterns over the United States. It will be held in reserve until August 2012, when it will be activated to begin monitoring Tropical Storm Isaac as it closes in on the Gulf Coast, and it will redirected to monitor Hurricane Sandy’s approach and landfall on the east coast of the United States. In 2013 it will be moved to a position near the GOES-EAST geostationary position to cover the Atlantic Ocean and the east coast during one of GOES-13’s many technical outages. It remains in orbit on standby.

NOAA’s GOES-15 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite is launched from Cape Canaveral into geosynchronous orbit to monitor weather patterns over the United States. In accordance with NOAA’s policy of having standby weather satellites already in orbit before their predecessors are decommissioned, GOES-15 is held in reserve until late 2011, when it will become the primary GOES-WEST satellite. It remains in orbit on active weather-watching duty.