GOES 15

GOES-15 was launched atop a Delta IV-M+(4,2) rocket flying from Space Launch Complex 37B at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.[3][4] The launch occurred at 23:57 UTC on 4 March 2010, forty minutes into a sixty-minute launch window. Upon reaching geostationary orbit on 16 March, it was redesignated GOES-15.[4][5] On 6 December 2011, it was activated as the GOES-West satellite, replacing GOES-11.[6]

At launch, the mass of the satellite was 3,238 kilograms (7,139 lb). It has a design life of ten years. Power is supplied by a single gallium arsenide solar panel, which provides up to 2.3 kilowatts of power. A 24 cell nickel hydrogen battery is used to provide power when the satellite is not in sunlight.[7] Instruments aboard GOES-15 include a five channel multispectral imager to capture visible light and infrared images of the continental United States, a sounder to take readings of atmospheric temperature and moisture, a solar x-ray imager to detect solar flares, and instruments to monitor the magnetosphere, cosmic background radiation and charged particles.[7]

NOAA began to transition GOES-15 out of operational status at the GOES-West position in late 2018 to replace it with GOES-17.[8][9] GOES-15 began an eastward drift maneuver on 29 October 2018 to 128° W, with all of its sensors still functioning.[9] GOES-15's drift is intended to provide additional separation from GOES-17 to prevent communication interference. GOES-15 drifted east at a rate of 0.88° per day until 7 November 2018, when it reached its new operating location of 128° West. Once GOES-17 reached its assigned longitude on 13 November 2018, additional tests were performed; provided that testing goes well, GOES-17 will become operational as GOES-West on 10 December 2018.[9] Both GOES-17 and GOES-15 operated in tandem through early 2020 to allow for assessment of the performance of GOES-17 as the GOES-West operational satellite.[9] On March 2, 2020, GOES-15 was deactivated and moved to a storage orbit, with plans to re-activate it in August 2020 to back up GOES-17 operations due to a known flaw causing many sensors to become unreliable at night during certain times of the year.[10][11] On 22 September 2023 the satellite's ownership was officially transferred to the U.S. Space Force, taking its current designation as part of the EWS-G network. As a consequence, the spacecraft has started drifting over the Indian Ocean to reach its new assigned orbit and it's scheduled to become operational in November 2023.[1]

• GOES-P Press Kit
• GOES Timeline The History of Geostationary Satellites. From the launch of SMS-1 in May 1974 through the launch of GOES-13.
• GOES-15 image examples on the CIMSS Satellite Blog