Atlas V 541 - GOES-S - March 1, 2018

[FutureSpaceTourist]

[butters]

There's an issue with the satellite:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/newest-noaa-weather-satellite-suffers-critical-malfunction/

Several weeks ago, it became clear that the most important instrument—the Advanced Baseline Imager—had a cooling problem... The infrared wavelengths are currently offline.

[Sam Ho]

NOAA statement on the ABI problem, along with a recording of the media call.

The problem affects 13 of the 16 channels for half the day around local midnight, when the sun is shining into the instrument, increasing the heat load.  The same instrument is working fine on GOES-16 and Himawari 8 and 9.

Scientists Investigate GOES-17 Advanced Baseline Imager Performance Issue
Wednesday, May 23, 2018

The GOES-R Program is currently addressing a performance issue with the cooling system encountered during commissioning of the GOES-17 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument.  The cooling system is an integral part of the ABI and did not start up properly during the on-orbit checkout.

A team of experts from NOAA, NASA, the ABI contractor team and industry are investigating the issue and pursuing multiple courses of possible corrective actions. The issue affects 13 of the infrared and near-infrared channels on the instrument. At this time, we do not believe that the three channels with the shortest wavelengths, which includes the visible channels, are significantly affected.

NOAA’s operational geostationary constellation -- GOES-16, operating as GOES-East, GOES-15, operating as GOES-West and GOES-14, operating as the on-orbit spare -- is healthy and monitoring weather across the nation each day, so there is no immediate impact from this performance issue.

If efforts to restore the cooling system are unsuccessful, alternative concepts and modes will be considered to maximize the operational utility of the ABI for NOAA's National Weather Service and other customers.  An update will be provided as new information becomes available.

https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/content/scientists-investigate-goes-17-advanced-baseline-imager-performance-issue

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Published on 1 Jun 2018
Go behind the scenes at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and find out what it takes to get a rocket, and its scientific payload, ready to fly.

[Targeteer]

http://aviationweek.com/awinspace/noaa-narrows-cause-goes-17-cooling-issue?NL=AW-05&Issue=AW-05_20180725_AW-05_453&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_10_3&utm_rid=CPEN1000001748383&utm_campaign=15742&utm_medium=email&elq2=8239639d573f4e749d8c57ceb863762a

The full details are behind the subscription wall but a note in the visible section reports GOES-R experienced the same issue...

[Targeteer]

https://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/181001_goes17_water_vapor_5minute_Full_Disk_anim.mp4

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/30072

GOES-17 Data shown in this post are preliminary and non-operational.

Continuous Full Disk (Mode 4) Testing is occurring on October 1 2018.   Mode 4 is the highest data flow rate for the ABI and results in a Full Disk image every 5 minutes.  No mesoscale sectors are produced during Mode 4 operations.  Five-minute CONUS imagery can be produced by subsecting the 5-minute Full-Disk Imagery.  This testing started at 0000 UTC on 1 October and will end at 0000 UTC on 2 October.

The animation above shows GOES-17 Full-Disk imagery for the upper-level water vapor imagery (6.19 µm) with a 5-minute cadence.  The GOES-16 animation for the same time and location is below.

Careful inspection of the imagery from the two satellites might reveal differences in brightness temperatures between the two instruments. This difference is due to view-angle differences. When the satellite is scanning near the limb, computed brightness temperatures will be cooler because more information detected by the satellite comes from the upper part of the atmosphere. Compare, for example, brightness temperatures just west of former Pacific Hurricane Rosa just west of Baja California. GOES-17, at 89.5 W Longitude, sees warmer temperatures than GOES-16 at 75.2 W Longitude. GOES-16’s view is more oblique, and is through more of the colder upper atmosphere.


(Update: GOES-16 returned to Mode-3 scanning at 1549 UTC on 1 October. Continuous Full Disk scanning on GOES-16 lead to degradation of derived products).

[Targeteer]

https://www.goes-r.gov/users/transitionToOperations17.html#summaryOfCooling

September 26, 2018

GOES-17 is planned to begin drifting from its current location of 89.5 degrees west longitude to its GOES West operational location of 137 degrees west longitude on October 24, 2018, at 1740 UTC. During the drift period, five instruments (ABI, GLM, SUVI, SEISS, and EXIS) will be placed in safe or diagnostic modes and will not be capturing or distributing data. MAG is the only instrument that will continue to operate with nominal data distribution during the transition but with data outages during spacecraft maneuvers on October 24 and 25, 2018, and November 12 and 13, 2018. GOES Rebroadcast (GRB), Data Collection System (DCS), High Rate Information Transmission (HRIT)/ Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN), and the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (SARSAT) system will be disabled during drift. This is due to X-band radio frequency downlink interference.

GOES-17 will drift west at a rate of 2.5 degrees per day and is scheduled to arrive at its final operational location of 137 degrees west on November 13, 2018. Following two days of calibration activity after GOES-17 reaches 137 degrees west, all instruments will resume data collection on November 15, 2018, with data distribution to test participants via GRB and PDA. GOES-17 will remain non-operational for an additional 3 weeks to allow for operational testing at the 137 degrees west position. After successful test completion, the satellite will go into operations as NOAA’s GOES West satellite sometime after December 10, 2018.

GOES-15 will begin drifting from its present location of 135 degrees west longitude on October 23, 2018, at 2015 UTC to its new operating location of 128 degrees west (to eliminate radio frequency interference with GOES-17). GOES-15 will drift east at a rate of 0.88 degrees per day until November 1, 2018, when it reaches its new operating location of 128 degrees west. All of GOES-15’s instruments and services will remain on during the drift with nominal GOES Variable (GVAR) and Low Rate Information Transmission (LRIT) distribution. On October 22, 2018, GOES-15 GVAR will begin relay through GOES-14 and will be available through both the GOES-15 and GOES-14 satellites during the drift period. On November 2, 2018, at 1500 UTC, GOES-15 GVAR relay through GOES-14 will end while GOES-15 GVAR direct broadcast continues.

GOES-15 (at 128 west) and GOES-17 (at 137 west) will operate in tandem for at least six months to allow for assessment of the performance of GOES-17 as the GOES West operational satellite. All drift and transition operations will be led by the NESDIS Office of Satellite and Product Operations (OSPO) with GOES-R Program operational support.


Summary of Cooling System Issue

During post-launch testing of the GOES-17 ABI instrument, an issue with the instrument’s cooling system was discovered. The loop heat pipe (LHP) subsystem, which transfers heat from the ABI electronics to the radiator, is not operating at its designed capacity. The consequence of this is that the ABI detectors cannot be maintained at their intended temperatures under certain orbital conditions. This is preventing adequate cooling for some of the infrared (IR) channels on the instrument during parts of the night, leading to partial loss of ABI imagery.

Infrared signals with long wavelengths can be swamped by infrared light emitted by warm parts of the imager, degrading the signal. Cooling the detectors reduces this thermal “noise” in observations. During nighttime hours, the sun heats up the ABI detectors faster than they can be cooled. The detectors become warmer than they’re designed to operate, and they begin to radiate at temperatures closer to the wavelengths they’re attempting to detect from the Earth. Eventually, local emissions and dark current noise overwhelm the signal from the Earth, and the channels saturate, meaning a useful signal is not available. Channel availability will also fluctuate seasonally depending on the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the instrument.

A great deal of progress has been made to optimize the performance of the GOES-17 data and the instrument is currently projected to deliver 97% of the data it was intended to provide. GOES-17 is observing with more channels, at a higher resolution, and with more rapid refresh than what is available from the current GOES West satellite. NOAA is confident the GOES constellation will continue to meet the operational needs of the National Weather Service and forecasters across the nation.

GOES-17 will move into operational service in late 2018 and will operate in tandem with GOES-15 for an extended period of time to enable user evaluation.


Path Forward

The anomaly investigation teams plan to provide findings and recommendations in fall of 2018. These include recommendations for the following: modifications to the GOES-T and GOES-U ABIs to address the loop heat pipe issue, operation of GOES-17 to maximize mission performance, and best constellation options for incorporating GOES-17, including potential changes to the operational usage of other assets.

NOAA plans to move GOES-17 into operational service in late fall of 2018. Preparations are underway to operate GOES-17 in tandem with GOES-15 for an extended period of time to enable user evaluation.



Known issues being investigated include the following:

    An anomaly with the ABI Loop Heat Pipe (LHP) prevents the instrument cooling system from maintaining sufficiently cool temperatures during certain parts of the day and year. Data quality will fluctuate seasonally depending on the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the instrument. During the instrument’s “cool” seasons (near the summer and winter solstice), all channels are expected to be nominal 24 hours per day. During the instrument’s “warm” seasons (before and after the vernal and autumnal equinox), experts estimate 7 channels (Bands 1-7) will be of nominal quality 24 hours per day and the other 9 channels (Bands 8-16) will be degraded and images will be of reduced quality or unusable 2-6 hours per night. These estimates are preliminary and are still being refined. The warmest part of the season is coming up in early September and performance estimates will need to be confirmed through observation during that time.
    Significant stray light exists for VNIR channels approximately one hour before and after satellite local midnight for approximately forty days during the eclipse season before the vernal (spring) equinox and after the autumnal (fall) equinox, and may exist in other days of the year.
    Stray light exists for Band 7 approximately one hour before and after satellite local midnight for approximately forty days during the eclipse season before the vernal (spring) equinox and after the autumnal (fall) equinox. The intensity of the stray light is less than the requirements, but may affect certain applications.
    Band 1 radiances may be brighter on the west end than on the east end by 1% or more.
    Band 4 radiances are about 7% darker, and Band 5 radiances are about 7% brighter than commonly accepted values from comparable satellites products. These may be due to error in the gains of these channels so the bias is larger for brighter scenes.
    Band 2 is brighter than commonly accepted values by up to 10%.
    There are periodic infrared calibration anomalies (PICA) present in the data that can be seen as regular and repeating pulses in infrared brightness temperatures. The infrared calibration may produce an error with a periodicity depending on timeline.
    There are periodic infrared calibration anomalies (PICA) present in the data that can be seen as regular and repeating pulses in infrared brightness temperatures. The infrared calibration may produce an error with a periodicity depending on timeline.
    Image striping may occur across all 16 channels.

[jacqmans]

October 02, 2018
RELEASE 18-082

NASA, NOAA Convene GOES 17 Mishap Investigation Board

NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have appointed a board to investigate an instrument anomaly aboard the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) 17 weather satellite currently in orbit.

During postlaunch testing of the satellite’s Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument, it was discovered that the instrument’s infrared detectors cannot be maintained at their required operating temperatures under certain seasonal and orbital conditions, resulting in a loss of approximately three percent of the instrument’s availability over the course of a year. This loss exceeds a key design requirement.

NASA and NOAA senior leadership have determined the need to convene the mishap investigation board, which will work to determine the root or proximate cause of the anomaly and identify actions to prevent occurrences on future satellites. The board will begin its work as soon as possible.

David McGowan, chief engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center, will chair the five-member board. The other four members are:
•Dr. Joel Lachter, human factors investigator, NASA’s Ames Research Center
•Rich Slywczak, safety officer, NASA’s Glenn Research Center
•Hank Rotter, NASA Engineering and Safety Center technical fellow for active thermal systems, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
•Julie Grantier, senior technical lead for systems engineering, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

GOES-17 is one of several next-generation weather satellites in the GOES-R series, including GOES-16, which currently serves as the operational geostationary weather satellite over the U.S. East coast. Later this year, GOES-17 will become operational as the GOES West satellite. Two additional satellites, GOES-T and GOES-U, are currently in development. The advanced instrument technology used on these satellites is contributing to more timely and accurate weather forecasts and warnings.

The GOES-R Series program is a collaborative effort between NOAA, NASA and industry partners. NOAA manages the GOES-R Series program through an integrated NOAA/NASA office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NASA also oversees the acquisition of the spacecraft, instruments and launch vehicles. Mission operations are performed by NOAA at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Maryland.

For more information about the GOES-R Series, visit:

https://www.goes-r.gov

[Targeteer]

http://aviationweek.com/awinspace/noaa-narrows-cause-goes-17-cooling-issue?NL=AW-05&Issue=AW-05_20180725_AW-05_453&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_10_3&utm_rid=CPEN1000001748383&utm_campaign=15742&utm_medium=email&elq2=8239639d573f4e749d8c57ceb863762a

The full details are behind the subscription wall but a note in the visible section reports GOES-R experienced the same issue...

Presumably the investigation will cover this detail as well...

[Targeteer]

https://www.goes-r.gov/featureStories/GOES-17GetReadyToDrift.html

"Due to this redesign, the planned launch of GOES-T in mid-2020 will be delayed"

October 22, 2018

This article was updated on October 23, 2018, to revise the details of the GOES-15 drift.

NOAA’s GOES-17 satellite is getting ready to move to its new vantage point at 137.2 degrees west longitude, allowing us to see the weather at high resolution in the western U.S., Alaska and Hawaii, and much of the Pacific Ocean.

On a warm, sunny evening in Cape Canaveral, Florida, NOAA launched its newest geostationary satellite, GOES-S, into space from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Eleven days after the March 1, 2018 launch, GOES-S reached its geostationary orbit 22,240 miles from Earth and officially became GOES-17. For the past seven months, the satellite has been in a temporary position – at 89.5 degrees west longitude – known as its on-orbit checkout location. Since then, scientists have been testing and calibrating GOES-17’s instruments so it is ready for “prime time” when the satellite becomes operational.

But before that happens, GOES-17 first has to move to its new orbital position over Earth’s equator at 137.2 degrees west longitude. This relocation process, known as “drift,” will take about three weeks to complete.


On October 24, at 1:40 p.m. EDT, GOES-17 will begin moving westward – at a rate of 2.5 degrees longitude per day – until it reaches its new position on November 13.

During the drift period, five of GOES-17’s instruments (ABI, GLM, SUVI, SEISS and EXIS) will not be collecting or sending us any data. These are the high-tech sensors we use to see clouds at high resolution, map lightning flashes, or monitor solar flares from space. Other features, including the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking (SARSAT) system will also be disabled.

How exactly do these satellites physically get moved from point A to point B thousands of miles above Earth? NOAA's Office of Satellite Product and Operations team can plan all of these maneuvers using navigation software. For a satellite to change its orbital position, it follows a series of commands uploaded by the operations team to the spacecraft's memory. The mission operations center validates and rehearses these maneuver sequences on the ground using a satellite simulator.

Normally, satellites maintain the same distance from Earth while operational and transmitting data. During drift, however, GOES-17's altitude will actually be raised slightly (by about 125 miles). This maneuver helps nudge the satellite to begin moving into its new orbital position. After GOES-17 finishes drifting, NOAA's mission operations team will lower the satellite back to its normal operating altitude. This raising and lowering process is used any time a geosynchronous satellite needs to change orbital positions.
GOES-15 and GOES-17 drift. Credit: NOAA

When GOES-17 reaches 137.2 degrees west on November 13, the satellite’s instruments won’t be turned on right away. First, a team of scientists will have to calibrate the instruments to ensure everything is working properly. If everything checks out, the transmitters aboard the spacecraft will be turned back on.

The next big milestone comes November 15, 2018. That’s when GOES-17 will start sending imagery and data via the GOES Rebroadcast System, and we’ll start seeing the first views of Alaska, Hawaii and the Pacific Ocean from GOES-17’s new orbital position. It will be an exciting day for all of us satellite enthusiasts, but the satellite won’t officially be operational just yet. First, GOES-17 will undergo three more weeks of testing to make sure it’s ready for “prime time.” If everything is working properly, GOES-17 will go into operations as NOAA’s GOES West satellite on December 10, 2018.

GOES-17 will considerably improve weather forecasting capabilities across the western United States, particularly in Alaska. “With GOES-17, we will have unprecedented coverage of Alaska from geostationary orbit. The GOES-17 imager has four times the resolution of the previous GOES imager, which will make a substantial difference in northern latitudes,” said Dan Lindsey, senior scientific advisor to the GOES-R Series Program. “GOES-17 is going to provide significant benefit for monitoring hazards often experienced in Alaska such as wildfires, volcanic ash, snow and sea ice.”

The GOES-15 drift

Shortly after GOES-17 starts to drift, NOAA’s current GOES West satellite, GOES-15, will also move to a new orbital home in order to “make room” for the newcomer. Currently, GOES-15 is keeping watch over the Western U.S. and the Pacific Ocean from 135 degrees west longitude. On October 29, GOES-15 will start its own orbital relocation. This is a delay from October 23 due to a National Weather Service Critical Weather Day declaration. A Critical Weather Day is triggered by significant weather or events affecting the United States or its inhabited territories. While GOES-17 will move west, GOES-15 will be moving east at a rate of 0.88 degrees longitude per day until it reaches its new orbital position at 128 degrees west.

Because it won’t need to move as far as GOES-17, the GOES-15 drift will only take nine days to complete. The latter satellite will reach its new orbital position on November 7. Unlike GOES-17, all of GOES-15’s instruments will remain on during the drift.
Tandem operations

Although GOES-15 will hand its “GOES West” title to GOES-17 in mid-December 2018, the former satellite won’t fade into sunset right away. Due to the technical issues with GOES-17’s Advanced Baseline Imager (or ABI, the satellite’s primary instrument), NOAA plans to operate GOES-15 and GOES-17 in tandem for at least six months. This will allow scientists to see how well GOES-17 is working as the new GOES West operational satellite.
GOES-17’s Advanced Baseline Imager captured this view of Earth’s Western Hemisphere from its checkout position (89.5şW) at 12:00 p.m. EDT, May 20, 2018.
GOES-17’s Advanced Baseline Imager captured this view of Earth’s Western Hemisphere from its checkout position (89.5şW) at 12:00 p.m. EDT, May 20, 2018. Credit: NOAA/NASA

While GOES-17 will experience data outages from some of its infrared channels overnight during the warmest parts of the year (before and after the vernal and autumnal equinox, when the instrument absorbs the highest amount of solar radiation), a team of experts has made excellent progress optimizing the performance of the instrument through operational changes. “The GOES-17 ABI is now projected to deliver more than 97 percent of the data it was designed to provide, a remarkable recovery,” said Pam Sullivan, System Program Director for the GOES-R Series Program. “We are confident the GOES constellation will continue to meet the needs of forecasters across the country.”

Looking ahead, NOAA is also implementing changes to the ABI on its future geostationary satellites, GOES-T and GOES-U, to reduce the risk of cooling system anomalies that were seen in GOES-17. The instrument radiator is being redesigned to improve its reliability. Due to this redesign, the planned launch of GOES-T in mid-2020 will be delayed. Once the new ABI radiator design is approved, NOAA will determine a new launch readiness date.

But before then, atmospheric scientists and weather enthusiasts can look forward to GOES-17’s next-generation imagery of developing storms, wildfires, and other environmental phenomena in Alaska, Hawaii, and much of the Pacific Ocean extending all the way to New Zealand. We’ll start seeing these views shortly after GOES-17 completes the journey to its new orbital position at 137.2 degrees west – the future home of NOAA’s new GOES West satellite.

For detailed information about the drift, see the GOES-17 transition to operations webpage.

[Targeteer]

CIMSS Facebook post

The GOES-17 satellite has finished the drift to its new orbital position at 137.2 degrees west longitude! Soon we’ll start seeing next-generation images (improved resolution, faster scans, more channels) of Alaska, Hawaii, the Pacific and the U.S. west coast from the satellite’s new operational perspective

[input~2]

NOAA’s GOES-17 Satellite Reaches Final Location, Sends Back Awesome Images

[catdlr]

NOAA GOES-17 Captures First Images Over Hawaii (Nov. 17, 2018)

Big Island Video News
Published on Nov 17, 2018

[Targeteer]

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/archives/31720

GOES-17 becomes the operational GOES-West satellite

GOES-S (named GOES-17 once it reached geostationary orbit) was launched on 01 March 2018. Beginning at 1800 UTC on 12 February 2019, it became the operational GOES-West satellite (replacing GOES-15, which was launched in March 2010). The period of transition to operational status is shown on Full Disk images of “Red” Visible (0.64 µm) and Mid-level Water Vapor (6.9 µm) images (above).

In an animation of GOES-17 images from the 16 ABI spectral bands, centered on the Big Island of Hawai’i (below), an increase in cumulus clouds was evident in the Visible and Near-Infrared bands (1-6) along with a warming signature of the island summits (Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa) in the Infrared bands (7-16) as daytime heating increased during the morning hours. Weighting functions for all of the Infrared bands which are not strongly affected by water vapor absorption (7, and 11-16) have peaks at/near the surface — and the presence of dry air within the middle troposphere shifted the three Water Vapor band (8-10) weighting functions downward to allow some of the island summit thermal signature to be sensed. This dry air aloft (and a lack of cirrus clouds over the island) also enabled the summits to be sensed by the Near-Infrared “Cirrus” band (4).

[Targeteer]

August 01, 2019
RELEASE 19-057
GOES-17 Mishap Investigation Board Study Completed
 
A Mishap Investigation Board appointed by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has identified the most likely cause for an instrument issue aboard NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-17 satellite that launched March 1, 2018 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

During postlaunch testing of the satellite’s Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), teams discovered the instrument’s infrared detectors could not be maintained at the required temperatures during some orbital conditions, which resulted in a partial loss of three of the instruments 16 bands during certain times of the year.

The ABI is GOES-17’s primary instrument for imaging Earth’s weather, oceans, and environment. It views the Earth with 16 spectral bands including two visible, four near-infrared, and 10 infrared channels.

The mishap board was tasked with gathering and analyzing information, and identifying the proximate causes, root causes, and contributing factors related to the ABI performance issues. It concluded the most likely cause of the ABI cooling issue is a blockage in the instrument’s loop heat pipes, which transfer heat from the ABI electronics to its radiator. The blockage restricted the flow of coolant in the loop heat pipes, causing the ABI to overheat and reducing the sensitivity of infrared sensors.

NOAA and NASA have adjusted the instrument operations, and are working to improve the quality of the data in order to reduce the impact of the cooling issue.

GOES-17, in the GOES-West position, is helping forecasters track weather from torrential rain events to wildfires and other environmental hazards throughout the U.S. western region, including California, Alaska and Hawaii. Also, GOES-17 is monitoring typhoons in the eastern Pacific Ocean, including Hawaii.

The Mishap Investigation Board Summary Report is available online at:

https://www.nasa.gov/reports

GOES-17 is one in a series of NOAA’s next generation geostationary weather satellites which include GOES-16, 18 and 19. The advanced instrument technology used on these satellites will result in more timely and accurate forecasts and warnings. It will improve support for the detection and observations of meteorological phenomena. The GOES-R Series program is a collaborative development and acquisition effort between NOAA and NASA to develop, launch and operate the geostationary weather satellites.

"Proximate Cause and Highest-Level Intermediate Cause
Through its causal analysis, the MIB identified the following proximate cause and highest-level intermediate cause:
GOES-17 MIB-determined Proximate Cause:
ECFT-3: The ABI R/LHP System Failed to Reject the Necessary Heat to Cool the ABI Detectors as Designed
The R/LHP may not have been able to dissipate all of the heat routed to it due to a design or operational limitation or an on-orbit condition. This event assumes that the amount of heat routed to the LHP was within the design limit. Analysis of the LHP performance on orbit shows that LHPs initially were only carrying 60 W of heat load, and that load soon after dropped to 10 W to 20 W. The on-orbit requirement is 390 W. This indicates that there was either a design issue or failure on-orbit.
GOES-17 MIB-determined highest-level Intermediate Cause:
ECFT-6: The ABI LHPs had Insufficient Working-Fluid Flow to Carry the Required Heat Load
This intermediate cause indicates that the movement of the working fluid was inadequate to dissipate the heat load being provided to the LHP.
With the limited set of available telemetry data and without the ability to evaluate the in-flight hardware, the R/LHP failure could not conclusively be isolated to a specific part or failure. These circumstances prevented the MIB from developing causal linkages below the intermediate level. However, after reviewing all of the data available, the MIB concludes that the most likely technical explanation for the failure of the GOES-17 LHPs to transport and reject their expected heat load is physical blockage of the LHP assembly by particulates contained in the working fluid.
In its causal analysis, the MIB examined objective evidence for causal elements in six categories (quality, requirements, design, testing, contamination, and structures) to assess the impact of each element as a potential contributor to the mishap. The MIB determined the engineering, process,and organizational issues related to those elements and have provided recommendations to address the issues identified."

[arachnitect]

August 01, 2019
RELEASE 19-057
GOES-17 Mishap Investigation Board Study Completed
 
[...]
The mishap board was tasked with gathering and analyzing information, and identifying the proximate causes, root causes, and contributing factors related to the ABI performance issues. It concluded the most likely cause of the ABI cooling issue is a blockage in the instrument’s loop heat pipes, which transfer heat from the ABI electronics to its radiator. The blockage restricted the flow of coolant in the loop heat pipes, causing the ABI to overheat and reducing the sensitivity of infrared sensors.

[...]
GOES-17 MIB-determined highest-level Intermediate Cause:
ECFT-6: The ABI LHPs had Insufficient Working-Fluid Flow to Carry the Required Heat Load
This intermediate cause indicates that the movement of the working fluid was inadequate to dissipate the heat load being provided to the LHP.
With the limited set of available telemetry data and without the ability to evaluate the in-flight hardware, the R/LHP failure could not conclusively be isolated to a specific part or failure. These circumstances prevented the MIB from developing causal linkages below the intermediate level. However, after reviewing all of the data available, the MIB concludes that the most likely technical explanation for the failure of the GOES-17 LHPs to transport and reject their expected heat load is physical blockage of the LHP assembly by particulates contained in the working fluid.
In its causal analysis, the MIB examined objective evidence for causal elements in six categories (quality, requirements, design, testing, contamination, and structures) to assess the impact of each element as a potential contributor to the mishap. The MIB determined the engineering, process,and organizational issues related to those elements and have provided recommendations to address the issues identified."

I don't work on this stuff for a living or anything but this seems... incomplete?

GOES-16 is fine, but GOES-17 has this major failure in 2 separate channels almost immediately?

Particle contamination doesn't feel intuitively right to me, but if the people who built it say that's where the fault tree leads... okay? Where'd it come from then? I'm surprised they can't trace it all the way back.