GOES-15, previously known as GOES-P, is an American

weather satellite A weather satellite or meteorological satellite is a type of Earth observation satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be polar orbiting (covering the entire Earth asynchronously), or ge ...

, which forms part of the

Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 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 for ...

(GOES) system operated by the U.S.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

. The spacecraft was constructed by

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

, and is the last of three GOES satellites to be based on the

BSS-601 The Boeing 601 (sometimes referred to as the BSS-601, and previously as the HS-601) is a communications satellite bus designed in 1985 and introduced in 1987 by Hughes Space and Communications Company. The series was extremely popular in the 199 ...

bus. It was launched in 2010, while the other BSS-601 GOES satellites -- GOES-13 and GOES-14—were launched in May 2006 and June 2009 respectively. It was the sixteenth GOES satellite to be launched.

Launch

GOES-15 was launched atop a Delta IV-M+(4,2) rocket flying from Space Launch Complex 37B at the

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the statio ...

. The launch occurred at 23:57 UTC on 4 March 2010, forty minutes into a sixty-minute

launch window In the context of spaceflight, launch period is the collection of days and launch window is the time period on a given day during which a particular rocket must be launched in order to reach its intended target. If the rocket is not launched wit ...

. Upon reaching geostationary orbit on 16 March, it was redesignated GOES-15. On 6 December 2011, it was activated as the GOES-West satellite, replacing GOES-11.

Design

At launch, the mass of the satellite was . It has a design life of ten years. Power is supplied by a single

gallium arsenide Gallium arsenide (GaAs) is a III-V direct band gap semiconductor with a Zincblende (crystal structure), zinc blende crystal structure. Gallium arsenide is used in the manufacture of devices such as microwave frequency integrated circuits, monoli ...

solar panel A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photo ...

, which provides up to 2.3 kilowatts of power. A 24 cell nickel hydrogen battery is used to provide power when the satellite is not in sunlight. Instruments aboard GOES-15 include a five channel multispectral imager to capture visible light and infrared images of the

continental United States The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

, a sounder to take readings of atmospheric temperature and moisture, a solar x-ray imager to detect

solar flare A solar flare is an intense localized eruption of electromagnetic radiation in the Sun's atmosphere. Flares occur in active regions and are often, but not always, accompanied by coronal mass ejections, solar particle events, and other solar phe ...

s, and instruments to monitor the

magnetosphere In astronomy and planetary science, a magnetosphere is a region of space surrounding an astronomical object in which charged particles are affected by that object's magnetic field. It is created by a celestial body with an active interior dynam ...

cosmic background radiation Cosmic background radiation is electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang. The origin of this radiation depends on the region of the spectrum that is observed. One component is the cosmic microwave background. This component is redshifted pho ...

and

charged particle In physics, a charged particle is a particle with an electric charge. It may be an ion, such as a molecule or atom with a surplus or deficit of electrons relative to protons. It can also be an electron or a proton, or another elementary particle, ...

Retirement

NOAA began to transition GOES-15 out of operational status at the GOES-West position in late 2018 to replace it with

GOES-17 GOES-17 (designated pre-launch as GOES-S) is an environmental satellite operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The satellite is second in the four-satellite GOES-R series (GOES-16, -17, - T, and - U). GOES-17 su ...

GOES-15 GOES-15, previously known as GOES-P, is an American weather satellite, which forms part of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) system operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The spacecraft was ...

began an eastward drift maneuver on 29 October 2018 to 128° W, with all of its sensors still functioning. GOES-15's drift is intended to provide additional separation from GOES-17 to prevent communication interference. GOES-15 drifted east at a rate of 0.88° per day until 7 November 2018, when it reached its new operating location of 128° West. Once GOES-17 reached its assigned longitude on 13 November 2018, additional tests were performed; provided that testing goes well, GOES-17 will become operational as GOES-West on 10 December 2018. Both GOES-17 and GOES-15 operated in tandem through early 2020 to allow for assessment of the performance of GOES-17 as the GOES-West operational satellite. On March 2, 2020, GOES-15 was deactivated and moved to a storage orbit, with plans to re-activate it in August 2020 to back up GOES-17 operations due to a known flaw causing many sensors to become unreliable at night during certain times of the year.

Media

References

External links

GOES-P Press Kit
The History of Geostationary Satellites. From the launch of SMS-1 in May 1974 through the launch of GOES-13.
GOES-15 image examples on the CIMSS Satellite Blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:GOES-15 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites Spacecraft launched in 2010 Satellites using the BSS-601 bus National Weather Service National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Spacecraft launched by Delta IV rockets Articles containing video clips