Pat Shingleton for Oct. 3, 2012

NOAA operates two spacecraft 22,300 miles above the equator. At the end of September, the GOES-13 spacecraft experienced problems with two of its critical weather-forecasting instruments.

When a valuable satellite goes on the fritz, “tech support” exhausts all of its computer-related initiatives to fix the problem, but the damage was too extensive.

This satellite provides images for the East Coast under NOAA’s geostationary operational environmental satellite system.

The sounder and imager instrumentation were deactivated Sept. 23 and to accommodate the needed coverage, NOAA configured a West Coast satellite, GOES-15, to cover the needed area. A spare satellite, GOES-14, was reactivated and to complement the coverage, the METEOSAT-9 and Europe’s EUMETSAT were incorporated into the mix.

Fastcast: October-like.