Topic: GOES-14/15/16/17 Spring 2023 Solar RFI predicted times are now available

Date/Time Issued: March 1, 2023 1332 UTC

Product(s) or Data Impacted: GOES-14/15/16/17 Imager and Sounder Data plus Ancillary Services (GVAR, SAR, LRIT, EMWIN, DCS, GRB, etc.)

Date/Time of Initial Impact: February 23, 2023 2034 UTC

Date/Time of Expected End: March 9, 2023 2151 UTC

Length of Outage: See table in details.

Details/Specifics of Change: The potential for solar radio frequency interference (RFI) with a satellite downlink circuit will occur whenever the Sun passes into the beam of the ground station receiving antenna.

We received the following information from our Mission Operations Division concerning the potential for outages of the GOES data stream including GVAR (GOES Variable) Imager and Sounder, SAR (Search and Rescue), High Rate Information Transmission (HRIT), Sensor Data (SD), Telemetry and Command (T&C), Weather Facsimile (WEFAX), Data Collection Platform Report (DCPR), Multi-use data link (MDL), Raw Data Link (RDL), etc.

The Wallops and Fairbanks Command and Data Acquisition Stations (CDAs) and Environmental Satellite Processing Center (ESPC) receiving antennas may experience periods of Solar RFI as predicted below. Solar RFI can cause loss of telemetry lock and command capability, as well as degradation or loss in the GVAR data.

Solar RFI predicted times for Spring 2023: 

SOLAR RFI PREDICTED TIMES FOR SPRING 2022

SPACECRAFT         DATE                   TIME               STATION      OPERATIONAL IMPACT

GOES-14 1 MAR - 8 MAR 1934 - 1945Z WALLOPS T&C

GOES-15 2 MAR - 8 MAR    2101 - 2112Z WALLOPS T&C **

GOES-16 1 MAR - 8 MAR    1707 - 1718Z WALLOPS RDL, GRB, T&C, HRIT, DCPC,

GOES-17 1 MAR - 8 MAR    1920 - 1931Z WALLOPS RDL, GRB, T&C

GOES-18 2 MAR - 9 MAR    2140 - 2151Z WALLOPS RDL, GRB, T&C, HRIT, DCPC,

** GVAR, MDL & SD will be activated on March 7.

Contact Information for Further Information: ESPC Operations atESPCOperations@noaa.gov at 301-817-3880

Web Site(s) for applicable information:

See http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/SATS/messages.html for this and other satellite-related messages.

See http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Operations/GOES/schedules.html for full GOES scanning schedules and scan sectors.

See http://www.osd.noaa.gov/GVAR_Downloads/gvar_downloads.html for more GVAR information.

See http://www.noaasis.noaa.gov/ for Direct Services Branch (DSB) information.

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