After 10 Years of Service NOAA Retires GOES-12 Satellite

GOES-12 has seen it all, from Hurricane Katrina that hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, to the Christmas blizzard that crippled the Central United States in 2009. It even traveled south of the equator to provide coverage for South America starting in 2010.
Now, after more than 10 years of stellar service, NOAA’s GOES-12 or Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-12 spacecraft is being retired.

Launched on July 23, 2001 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., the GOES-M satellite was renamed GOES-12 once it achieved operational orbit. GOES-12 lasted well beyond its original operational design life of two years for on-orbit storage and five years of actual operations to support forecasters and scientists in NOAA’s National Weather Service.

During February 2010, the GOES-12 (also called GOES-M) weather satellite observed a record-breaking series of snow storms that blanketed the mid-Atlantic coast and drew comparisons to the severity of the Blizzard of 1922. The movie compresses 16 days of observations into 2 minutes. Image Credit: NASA GOES Project.

“The launch of the GOES 8-12 series, ending with GOES 12, marked a significant advancement in geosynchronous weather monitoring.” said Andre Dress, who was the mission operations engineering lead at the time of launch. Dress worked on the GOES I through M series from 1992 to 2001. “It was the transition from the old spinners to a spacecraft that could continuously stare at the earth. It literally changed the game for weather prediction and provided a service that exceeded our wildest dreams. I am proud to have been part of the great team that built, launched, and operated these spacecraft.” Dress is now the Deputy Project Manager for the JPSS mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., was responsible for procuring, developing and verification testing of the spacecraft, instruments and unique ground equipment. Following deployment of the spacecraft from the launch vehicle, Goddard was responsible for the mission operation phase leading to injection of the satellite into geostationary orbit and initial in-orbit satellite checkout and evaluation.
NOAA was responsible for program funding and the in-orbit operation of the system. NOAA also determined the need for satellite replacement. NOAA and NASA jointly design, develop, install and integrate the ground

system needed to acquire, process and disseminate the data from the sensors on the GOES satellites. NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is responsible for launch services.

Built by Space Systems/Loral, GOES-12 became operational April 1, 2003 as the GOES-East satellite, monitoring weather across the U.S. East Coast and part of the Atlantic Ocean. On May 10, 2010, when GOES-12 was no longer able to be maintained to meet the requirements of the National Weather Service, it was shifted to a new position, where it provided coverage of weather conditions affecting South America, including volcanic ash clouds, wildfires, and drought.

NOAA’s GOES-12 satellite was decommissioned on August 16th, 2013 after 3,788 days in service. From April 2003 to May 2010, GOES-12 served as GOES East, providing “eye in the sky” monitoring memorable events such as the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and the series of blizzards during 2009-2010. Image Credit: NOAA.

“GOES-12 gave the Western Hemisphere many years of reliable data as the operational eastern GOES for accurate forecasts, from small storms to those of historic proportions,” said Mary Kicza, assistant administrator for NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service.
When NOAA decommissions a geostationary satellite like GOES-12, it is boosted further into orbit, the remaining fuel is expended, the battery is disabled and the transmitters are turned off. These maneuvers reduce the chances the satellite will collide with other operational spacecraft. Additionally, decommissioning lowers the risk of orbital debris and stops the satellite from transmitting any signals that could interfere with any current or future spacecraft.

NOAA continues to operate GOES-13, which serves as the GOES East satellite for the United States and GOES-15, which is the GOES West satellite – both hovering 22,300 miles above the equator. NOAA also has an orbital backup geostationary satellite, GOES-14, which can be activated if any of the operational satellites experience trouble.

Kicza added: “The NOAA-NASA partnership is making steady progress toward developing and launching the more advanced GOES-R satellite series to position us into the future.”
GOES-R is expected to more than double the clarity of today’s GOES imagery and provide more atmospheric observations than current capabilities with more frequent images. Data from the GOES-R instruments will be used to create many different products that will help NOAA meteorologists and other users monitor the atmosphere, land, ocean and the sun. GOES-R will also carry a new Geostationary Lightning Mapper that will provide for the first time a continuous surveillance of total lightning activity throughout the Americas and adjacent oceans.

In addition to GOES, NOAA also operates the polar operational environmental satellite (POES) program satellites, the Defense Meteorological Satellites Program series satellites and the Suomi NPP spacecraft.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and our other social media channels.
For more information, go to the NASA GOES-12 Fact Sheet.

For more information about the GOES-R satellite, visit:
www.goes-r.gov/?