HN Explorer

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ImJasonH
https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/weather-satellite-goes-1... explains a bit more what this is, and what this means.

> The main NOAA satellite for tracking Atlantic, Gulf Coast hurricanes is out until further notice

> GOES-19 is the main instrument used to identify tropical waves as they strengthen and move over the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, providing real-time tracking for forecasting.

venzaspa
As an aside, I'm always surprised how US Gov websites look like they've been made in Dreamweaver in about 2006. Not even seemingly with a emphasis on usability either.
dabluecaboose
While it may not be flashy, I personally find the GOES sites extremely useful. Things are often simply placed at obvious and expected URLs, so scraping or monitoring is extremely easy.

I wrote the script that provides the GOES NavSum [1] and it pretty much just builds a standardized text file and drops it in the folder. The neat thing is that this makes it really easy to programmatically scrape and parse the data.

I wrote a script at one point that would download the GOES-EAST CONUS image and both EAST and WEST full disk images and composite them into a wallpaper. At one point my server had 500GB of archived GOES imagery. I liked to joke with my former coworkers that I could report image anomalies before they notice because my desktop wallpaper would change every 10 minutes.

[1] https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/resources/cemscs/navsum.txt

ranger207
Hey, I have a script for updating my background too! I'm not archiving the old images though, but I've thought about it to make some cool animations
kevin_thibedeau
You can thank AccuWeather for nerfing any funding for site modernization. I'm surprised the tiled radar map hasn't had the Biden performance fixes reverted.
queuebert
The link OP submitted appears to be a webpage displaying a screenshot of another web page, and the image aspect ratio has been altered. It's so comically bad it had to be on purpose, or someone is doing their web dev in MS Word.

Edit: I think actually it's a screenshot of a screenshot even, and this appears to be the entire design of spaceweather.gov. What in the holy heck is going on there? This has to be a top 10 worst website designs of all time.

bityard
Lots of the web still looks like this when you step outside the comfort zone of big tech search engines, content streaming sites, and social media.
jubilanti
A safehold is like maintenance mode, shutting down all non-essential systems, after it detects something is wrong. Doesn't necessarily mean it is gone for good, but not a good sign.
delichon
What is it that the space aliens don't want us to see? The obvious conclusion is that they are hiding their invasion fleet arrivals inside of hurricanes. The proof will be when the system comes back online and only permits us to see ordinary weather.
dabluecaboose
They're concerned because GOES-19 deployed with the newest Rothschild Space Weather Laser, which could disrupt their atmospheric camouflage
dabluecaboose
Former GOES engineer here. At this point I'd almost be surprised if 19 didn't have something go wrong. We had issues on almost every other satellite. GOES-17 had the loop heat pipe anomaly, GOES-15 (IIRC) had a micrometeorite strike, and GOES-13 had a fuel tank anomaly right before deorbit.

GOES-16 and GOES-17 are on-orbit spares, so in the extremely unlikely event of a total failure there's at least another spacecraft on-orbit ready to take up station.

That said, I have every faith in the GOES team to get to the bottom of this. They're the best, and I often wish I was back there working with them.

fishgoesblub
> Supposedly from someone stepping on it in the cleanroom

I would be too embarrassed to return to work if I did that.

pooloo
How do they track that? Is there a log book where someone has to write to?

"Observed EMP555 step on loop heat pipe. Conducted visual inspection of the affected area; no damage found, pipe remains nominal."

robszumski
I'm sure they take detailed close out photos and likely video of the entire handling process.
Rygian
From now on, every time I see the word "anomaly" I will assume it is an euphemism for "someone stepped on it".
doright
> GOES-17 had the loop heat pipe anomaly(Supposedly from someone stepping on it in the cleanroom...)

Was this reported anywhere in the news? Sounds like one of those "not even once" kind of mistakes.

GTP
You expect cleanrooms to be extremely controlled environments where skilled technicians and engineers very carefully handle sensitive equipment... Then someone steps on a component :D
Uncle_Brumpus
Interestingly, I noticed this in aproximately real time. I had been checking up on the visible-light geocolor composite images every hour or so to look at the massive plume of Canadian wildfire smoke that was turning the skies in the northeast dark orange yesterday.

I haven't interacted with the GOES site or cared too much about the image output until the last 2 days, and the it immediately broke. Somewhat humorous to me.

dekhn
I love how "safe mode" for a satellite is basically: "extend solar panels, turn self towards sun, don't do anything unnecessary, wait for further instructions".
munificent
My restorative mode is also "turn self towards sun, don't do anything unnecessary".
ls65536
Very unfortunate timing given the ongoing wildfires and associated smoke spreading across eastern North America in recent days.
tomnicholas1
Anyone interested in accessing GOES data at scale will find this interesting - I created a Zarr index over the 7 billion chunks of data in the GOES-16 archive.

https://www.earthmover.io/blog/virtual-zarr

runamuck
I used to work for NOAA. I think the scientists would flip out over this. Did you share it?
tomnicholas1
Yes! But if you want to share it with anyone else that would be great, since we're advocating for fairly radical changes within a big bureaucracy here, as I'm sure you will appreciate :)
webdoodle
Invasion of Cuba incoming?
edot
No, you can’t see ships with this satellite. Too small. Besides, Russia and China have way better satellites that they’ll happily share intel from with Cuba.
dlgeek
From the latest update (https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/operations/goes/status.html#datafi...), it looks like they're already restoring systems.

``` Update #3: DCS and SAR have returned to service as of 1630Z. Engineers will now work to restore ABI and expect imaging to resume by 1900Z. Image navigation may be slightly degraded for the first hour after imaging starts. The GOES-19 instruments will be restored in the following order:

    ABI
    GLM
    SUVI
    CCOR-1/EXIS/MAG/SEISS
The recovery process to return all GOES-19 instruments to normal operations is projected to take approximately 8 hours.

Update #2: The GOES-19 Safehold has been resolved and engineers are working to prepare for restart of the onboard instruments. More information on the recovery timeline will be provided when known. ```