alt Hacker NewsFormer 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.
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> 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.
> Supposedly from someone stepping on it in the cleanroom
I would be too embarrassed to return to work if I did that.
From now on, every time I see the word "anomaly" I will assume it is an euphemism for "someone stepped on it".