Key satellite fails as hurricane season launches
NOAA activates spare satellite as ‘extremely active’ season starts June 1
Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 27 May, 2013 : – – The GOES 13 satellite positioned to track severe weather in the eastern United States has failed, just as the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season is about to start. NOAA activated a spare satellite, which will provide coverage of the East Coast, while it tries to fix the failed one
‘There is no estimate on return to operations at this time,’ NOAA said in a status report on its website on Friday. The Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season starts on June 1. NOAA expects this year’s season to be “extremely active,” with 13 to 20 tropical storms and seven to 11 of those strengthening into hurricanes.
The agency’s three current Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). NOAA typically operates two GOES spacecraft over the United States, overlooking the East and West coasts, plus one on-orbit spare. The satellites are outfitted with imagers to watch for clouds and developing storms, and atmospheric sounders to measure temperatures and humidity.
The first sign of trouble with GOES-13, the primary East Coast satellite, surfaced late Wednesday when it failed to relay expected images, NOAA status reports indicate.
GOES-13 is located over 75 degrees west longitude. Though activated, the spare remains in its storage orbit at 105 degrees west. NOAA said it is not planning to drift the spare east, while efforts to troubleshoot its failed sister satellite are under way.
Source: NOAA
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