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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday May 27 2018, @09:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the blinded-by-the-heat dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow3941

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released some bad news today: the GOES-17 weather satellite that launched almost two months ago has a cooling problem that could endanger the majority of the satellite's value.

GOES-17 is the second of a new generation of weather satellite to join NOAA's orbital fleet. Its predecessor is covering the US East Coast, with GOES-17 meant to become "GOES-West." While providing higher-resolution images of atmospheric conditions, it also tracks fires, lightning strikes, and solar behavior. It's important that NOAA stays ahead of the loss of dying satellites by launching new satellites that ensure no gap in global coverage ever occurs.

The various instruments onboard the satellite have been put through their paces to make sure everything is working properly before it goes into official operation. Several weeks ago, it became clear that the most important instrument—the Advanced Baseline Imager—had a cooling problem. This instrument images the Earth at a number of different wavelengths, including the visible portion of the spectrum as well as infrared wavelengths that help detect clouds and water vapor content.

The infrared wavelengths are currently offline. The satellite has to be actively cooled for these precision instruments to function, and the infrared wavelengths only work if the sensor stays below 60K—that's about a cool -350°F. The cooling system is only reaching that temperature 12 hours a day. The satellite can still produce visible spectrum images, as well as the solar and lightning monitoring, but it's not a glorious next-gen weather satellite without that infrared data.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/newest-noaa-weather-satellite-suffers-critical-malfunction/


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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday May 27 2018, @11:20AM (2 children)

    by anubi (2828) on Sunday May 27 2018, @11:20AM (#684810) Journal

    Its not an irreversible situation... for THAT satellite, it is, but not for the program.

    Learn what went wrong. Build another one.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday May 27 2018, @01:50PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 27 2018, @01:50PM (#684814) Journal

      Build another one.

      And this time don't let the technicians borrow those Peltier elements to chill their beer.

      (grin)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27 2018, @03:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27 2018, @03:35PM (#684832)

      That is true, but it is particularly hard when it happens to a program that has been plagued by cost overruns and billowing budgets. After years of all that Strum and Dram, it had better work. This stuff happens to James Webb all the time, but they use the excuse (much too often, I think) that "we're doing things that nobody has ever done before!" as their get-out-of-jail-for-free card, but here cooling IR sensors isn't re-inventing physics.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Sunday May 27 2018, @02:38PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Sunday May 27 2018, @02:38PM (#684820) Journal

    At work we had to re-seal some of the RF modules that went into these satellites after the last guy somehow managed to get metal shavings in one of them after hermetically sealing them. They had to de-lid the units, clean, inspect, retest, we re-sealed them, and back for a year long calibration (And you wonder why their launches were delayed). There was a big deal when that crew rolled in. They even re-painted some of the shop to make everything look as clean and neat as possible. A crew of six engineers came with various instruments to inspect our equipment to ensure it was satisfactory (we passed of course). Four engineers then stood watch over our operators shoulder as he resealed each piece. They did the final inspection, packed their modules into individual hard cases and went back to wherever (think it was aerojet rocketdyne). Not sure if this incident was part of GOES 16 or 17.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Sunday May 27 2018, @03:54PM (2 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 27 2018, @03:54PM (#684835) Journal

    When this story broke, I noticed that most news outlets had fair-to-good headlines, while others (like arstechnica) chose clickbaity showmanship with headlines like:

    Newest NOAA Weather Satellite Suffers Critical Malfunction

    A "critical malfunction" calls up images of a dead satellite that doesn't respond to ping. Or one that burns up in a fiery spectacle of failure. Or explodes. Or threatens the Earth's continued survival. Etc.

    That isn't the problem with this one. It's working properly, except that for part of its orbit, some of the instruments don't return data and others have limited range, because of a cooling problem. And some instruments are working fine.

    Sure, that's not what NOAA intended, but it didn't die, go nova, fall into the sun, or anything like that.

    Some more informative, less clickbaity headlines:

    Popular Mechanics: NOAA's New Weather Satellite Has a Cooling Problem [popularmechanics.com]

    ABC News: New US weather satellite can't keep cool, could hurt photos [go.com]

    Science Magazine: Cooling failure threatens NOAA's newest weather satellite [sciencemag.org]

    CBS News: NOAA studies "serious problem" with new GOES weather satellite [cbsnews.com]

    Several more: Google News search: NOAA GOES satellite problem [google.com]

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday May 27 2018, @06:53PM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Sunday May 27 2018, @06:53PM (#684877) Journal

      It absolutely is a critical malfunction.

      NOAA are denied the use of arguable the most important instrument except at night, but storms build faster in the daytime due to solar input.

      I would say Ars just refused to sugar coat it like the rest of the fawning press.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2, Redundant) by requerdanos on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:06PM

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:06PM (#684880) Journal

        It absolutely is a critical malfunction.

        Your differing opinion is appreciated and noted.

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