GOES 15

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US Space Force weather satellite

title: "GOES 15" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["geostationary-operational-environmental-satellites", "spacecraft-launched-in-2010", "satellites-using-the-bss-601-bus", "national-weather-service", "national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration", "spacecraft-launched-by-delta-iv-rockets", "articles-containing-video-clips"] description: "US Space Force weather satellite" topic_path: "general/geostationary-operational-environmental-satellites" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOES_15" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary US Space Force weather satellite ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox spaceflight"]

Field	Value
name	EWS-G2
names_list	GOES-P
GOES-15 (before September 22, 2023)
image	GOES-P.jpg
image_caption	The GOES-15 satellite during pre-launch processing.
mission_type	Weather satellite
operator	NOAA NASA
COSPAR_ID	2010-008A
SATCAT	36411
mission_duration	10 years (planned)
Elapsed:
spacecraft_type	GOES-N series
spacecraft_bus	BSS-601
manufacturer	Boeing
ITT Corporation
power	2.3 kilowatts from solar array
launch_date	UTC
launch_rocket	Delta IV-M+(4,2)
launch_site	Cape Canaveral, SLC-37B
launch_contractor	United Launch Alliance
deactivated
orbit_reference	Geocentric
orbit_regime	Geostationary
orbit_semimajor	42166 km
orbit_periapsis	35791.0 km
orbit_apoapsis	35800.4 km
orbit_inclination	0.2°
orbit_period	1,436.2 minutes
orbit_longitude	62° East
apsis	gee
::

EWS-G2 (Electro-optical Infrared Weather System Geostationary) is a weather satellite of the U.S. Space Force, formerly GOES-15 (also known as GOES-P before becoming operational). The spacecraft was constructed by Boeing, and is the last of three GOES satellites to be based on the BSS-601 bus. It was launched in 2010, while the other BSS-601 GOES satellites—GOES-13 and GOES-14—were launched in May 2006 and June 2009 respectively. It was the sixteenth GOES satellite to be launched.

Launch

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/GOES-P_launched_by_Delta_IV_rocket.jpg" caption="Cape Canaveral Air Force Station SLC-37B]], 4 March 2010."] ::

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. 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. On 6 December 2011, it was activated as the GOES-West satellite, replacing GOES-11.

Design

At launch, the mass of the satellite was 3238 kg. 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. 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.

Operations

NOAA began to transition GOES-15 out of operational status at the GOES-West position in late 2018 to replace it with GOES-17. GOES-15 began an eastward drift maneuver on 29 October 2018 to 128° W, with all of its sensors still functioning. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Media

References

(22 September 2023). "Space Force accepts second weather satellite through NOAA partnership". U.S. Space Force.
Krebs, Gunter. "GOES N, O, P, Q". Gunter's Space Page.
"GOES-P Launch Blog". NASA.
Ray, Justin. "Mission Status Center". Spaceflight Now.
(4 March 2010). "LIVE: Delta IV set to launch GOES-P weather satellite". [[NASAspaceflight.com]].
"NOAA activates GOES-15 satellite; deactivates GOES-11 after nearly 12 years in orbit". NOAA.
"GOES-P Mission Operations Booklet". United Launch Alliance.
"Get Ready to Drift: GOES-17 Begins Move to Its New Operational Position {{!}} NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)". www.nesdis.noaa.gov.
"GOES-17 Transition to Operations │ GOES-R Series".
(2020-02-19). "GOES-16/17 Transition". [[NOAA]].
(2020-03-02). "GOES-15 is no longer sending data". [[CIMSS]].

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::