Goes-19 weather satellite enters Safe Hold mode

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(Supposedly from someone stepping on it in the cleanroom...), 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.

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".

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.

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

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. ```

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.

Looks like they're making progress toward getting things restarted: "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." [0]

[0] https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/messages/2026/07/MSG_20260716...

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

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.

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.

Very unfortunate timing given the ongoing wildfires and associated smoke spreading across eastern North America in recent days.

Better link: https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/operations/goes/status.html

status page says

        SAFEHOLD HAS BEEN RESOLVED

* https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/operations/goes/status.html

* https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/operations/goes/status.html#datafi...

Invasion of Cuba incoming?

is this old cache?

* https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES19/ABI/CONUS/GEOCOLOR/2...

* https://cdn.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES19/ABI/CONUS/GEOCOLOR/G...

[dead]

[dead]