GOES-W Yaw Flip Data Outage

March 27, 2019

 2 minute read

On Wednesday, March 27 at approximately 20:35z, GOES-W (GOES-17) will undergo a yaw flip maneuver. During this maneuver, a data outage will occur for at least two hours for all Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) channels. Some channels may take up to 8 hours to fully come back online. Additionally, the space weather sensors and GLM sensors will be affected.

What is a yaw flip?

The yaw flip is important because it helps mitigate the Loop Heat Pipe (LHP) heat-dissipation issue with the GOES-W ABI. According to GOES-R Product Quality Engineer, Dave Pogorzala, during this time of year the amount of sunlight shining on the ABI begins to increase due to the orientation of the ABI in relation to the sun and the earth’s tilt. This causes increased saturation of the ABI IR channels due to the LHP. Flipping the ABI upside down helps to mitigate the increased sunlight effects because some of the components on the satellite act to physically shade the ABI sensor. This shading effect is maintained until the sun/earth/satellite orientation changes again near the autumnal equinox.  

Figure 1 below shows the current orientation of the GOES-W satellite on the left and the new orientation after the yaw flip on the right.

Figure 1. The left picture shows the current orientation of the GOES-W satellite relative to Earth. The right picture shows the new orientation of the GOES-W satellite after the yaw flip.

 

What should I expect?

The GOES-W yaw flip will begin at approximately 20:35z on March 27.  There will be a data outage of all ABI channels for at least two hours.  After that, channels 1 to 6 will return quickly. However, channels 7 to 16 will return gradually, with some taking up to an additional 6 hours to fully return.

Questions?

We want to hear from you! If you have any questions or concerns, contact the TOWR-S team through NWS Chat by joining the "towr-s" group.