GOES-7, known as GOES-H before becoming operational, is an American

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...

. It was originally built as a

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 ...

, and formed part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's

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 fo ...

system. Originally built as a ground spare, GOES-H was launched in 1987 due to delays with the next series of satellites. It was operated by NOAA until 1999, before being leased to Peacesat, who use it as a

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth ...

. As of 2009, it was operational over the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

, providing communications for the Pacific Islands. On April 12, 2012, the spacecraft was finally decommissioned and moved to a

graveyard orbit A graveyard orbit, also called a junk orbit or disposal orbit, is an orbit that lies away from common operational orbits. One significant graveyard orbit is a supersynchronous orbit well beyond geosynchronous orbit. Some satellites are moved into ...

Launch

GOES-H was launched aboard a

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it pro ...

Delta 3914 rocket, flying from Launch Complex 17A 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 23:05 GMT on 26 February 1987. The launch had originally been scheduled for late 1986, but was delayed after

GOES-G GOES-G was a weather satellite to be operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The satellite was designed to sense and monitor meteorological conditions from a geostationary orbit, intended to replace GOES-5 and provide c ...

failed to achieve orbit. It was built by Hughes Space and Communications, based on the HS-371 satellite bus, and was the last of five GOES-D series satellites to be launched.

Operations

Following launch, GOES-7 was positioned in geostationary orbit at a

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...

of 75° West, where it underwent on-orbit testing before being activated in the GOES-EAST slot of the constellation. Due to the loss of GOES-G, and delays in the development of the GOES-I series spacecraft, no reserve satellites were available in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After the imager on the GOES-6 satellite failed in 1989, GOES-7 was left as the only operational GOES satellite. It was moved to 98° West to cover the whole 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 ...

. In 1992, Meteosat 3 was leased from

Eumetsat The European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) is an intergovernmental organisation created through an international convention agreed by a current total of 30 European Member States. EUMETSAT's primary ...

to take over GOES-EAST operations, allowing GOES-8 to be moved 112° West. When GOES-8 entered service in 1995, it replaced Meteosat 3, and GOES-7 was moved to the GOES-WEST position at 135° West. It remained in service until its retirement from service in 1996, at which time it was moved to 95° West. It was then transferred to Peacesat, and positioned at 175° West until its final retirement and disposal in 2012. It is the only satellite to have been operated as both GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST in the course of normal operations. GOES-10 has been used as both GOES-EAST and GOES-WEST, however its operations as GOES-EAST were as a backup during an outage of

GOES-12 GOES-12, known as GOES-M before becoming operational, is an American weather satellite, which is part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system. It was launched on July 23, ...

, and the satellite was not moved to the GOES-EAST orbital position.

References

{{Use American English, date=January 2014 1987 in spaceflight Spacecraft launched in 1987 Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites

Launch

Operations

See also

References