GOES 13

Launch of GOES-13

GOES-N was launched aboard a Boeing Delta IV-M+(4,2) rocket, flying from Space Launch Complex 37B at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch occurred at 22:11:00 UTC on May 24, 2006.[8]

The launch had been delayed significantly due to a number of issues. First, it had been scheduled to fly on a Delta III,[9] but after three consecutive failures on its first three flights, the Delta III was canceled, with GOES launches being transferred to the Delta IV. Further delays were caused after the previous Delta IV launch, the maiden flight of the Heavy configuration, suffered a partial failure.[10] Then, two launch attempts in August 2005 were scrubbed, the second attempt just four minutes and 26 seconds prior to liftoff.[11]

After these launch attempts, the rocket's flight termination system batteries expired, requiring replacement.[12] A strike by workers at Boeing subsequently pushed the launch back to May 2006.[13]

At launch, the satellite had a mass of 3,133 kilograms (6,907 lb), and an expected operational lifespan of ten years, although it carries fuel for longer.[14] It was built by Boeing, based on the BSS-601 satellite bus,[15] and was the first of three GOES-N series satellites to be launched.

In December 2007, GOES-13 was called up to provide coverage of the east coast of the United States during an outage of GOES-12 due to a thruster leak. After the problem with GOES-12 cleared, it resumed operations, and GOES-13 was deactivated again. It was also briefly activated in mid-May 2009 when GOES-12 developed another thruster problem, however, it did not need to take over operations, and was deactivated by the end of the month. In April 2010, GOES-13 replaced GOES-12 as GOES-East at 75° West.[16] GOES-13 served actively as GOES-East from April 2010 to December 2017. In December 2017, GOES-16 replaced GOES-13 as GOES-East.[3] On December 14, 2017, GOES-13's direct GVAR was disabled. The GOES-13 GVAR and LRIT were relayed through GOES-14 until January 8, 2018, at which time the GOES-13 GVAR relay through GOES-14 GVAR was disabled. GOES-13 ceased transmitting data, began drifting to its storage location at 60° West on January 9, and arrived there on January 31.[17] GOES-13 remained at 60°W as a backup satellite, in case one of the operational GOES satellites malfunctioned.[4]

In January 2017, the United States Air Force started to consider taking over a spare GOES satellite for monitoring the Indian Ocean after the Meteosat-8 satellite runs out of fuel in 2020.[18] GOES-13 was brought out of storage on June 19, 2019 for a period of testing,[19] and began to drift westward since July 2.[5] In September, NOAA confirmed that GOES-13 had been transferred to the U.S. Air Force after the two-year negotiation in order to fill a gap in forecasting requirements, but NOAA will continue operating the satellite on behalf of the U.S. Air Force for its remaining life span.[6] In January 2020, the U.S. Air Force revealed that GOES-13 had been renamed to DOD-1 (Department of Defense-1) and will be fully operational for the Indian Ocean in mid-2020.[1] After the 7-month drift, DOD-1 eventually arrived at 61.5 degrees east longitude in mid-February 2020.[7]

• 2006 in spaceflight
• List of GOES satellites