GOES-19 will replace GOES-16 as the operational GOES-East satellite on April 4, 2025.
GOES-16 East/West Station Keeping Maneuver and Transition to GOES-19 Data Products
Updated 03-17-2025 1400 UTC GOES-16
Transition and Potential Image Artifacts
Between March 17th and 31st, GOES-16 will shift its position (drift) from 75.2°W to 75.5°W to accommodate the upcoming GOES-19 satellite. This transition may result in temporary visual artifacts within the ABI CONUS (Continental United States) imagery at 75.5°W. These artifacts are expected to disappear when GOES-19 takes over GOES-East operations on April 4th.
Data Impacts:
- ABI Full Disk and MESO Scenes: Normal image quality and interference/noise ratio (INR) performance are expected.
- GLM (Geostationary Lightning Mapper) and SUVI (Solar Ultraviolet Imager): Normal data quality and INR performance are expected.
- EXIS (Extreme Ultraviolet and X-ray Irradiance Sensors) and SEISS (Space Environment In-Situ Suite): No impact is expected.
- Metadata: The “nominal_satellite_subpoint_lon” metadata in ABI and GLM product headers will remain incorrectly set to -75.2°E throughout the transition. This metadata issue will not affect HRIT (High Rate Information Transmission) file creation or image navigation.
EMWIN CONUS IR Imagery:
The CONUS IR image broadcast within the EMWIN dataset (Virtual Channel 21, filename pattern Z_EINA00KWBCddhhmm_C_KWIN_yyyyMMddhhmmss_nnnnnn-4-G16CIRUS.JPG) may display artifacts during GOES-16’s drift and while it is stationed at 75.5°W.
UPDATED March 17, 2025 On April 4, 2025 at 1510 UTC, the GOES-19 satellite will be declared the Operational GOES-East satellite. Until that transition date and during this final period of Post Launch Product Testing (PLPT), GOES-19 products are considered non-operational regardless of their validation maturity level. All products and services (e.g., GRB, HRIT/EMWIN, DCS, AWIPS, PDA, CLASS, NODD) for GOES-East will be transitioned to GOES-19 data. GOES-19 will operate out of the GOES-East location of 75.2°W starting on April 1, 2025 and through the operational transition.
Shortly following the transition of GOES-19 to GOES-East, all data distribution from GOES-16 will be turned off. GOES-16 will commence drifting to the storage location at 104.7°W.
Orbital Drift: Between 17 March 2025 and 1 April 2025, the GOES-16 satellite will undergo a minor East/West station-keeping maneuver, drifting from its current operational longitude of 75.2°W to a new operational longitude of 75.5°W. During this time, the GOES-East HRIT/EMWIN Broadcast will continue from GOES-16. This 0.3°W shift is expected to induce minimal change in received signal strength for ground stations employing properly aligned small aperture antennas.
GOES-19 will also begin its drift maneuver– drifting from 89.5°W to 75.2°W ~1 deg/day drift
GRB/HRIT Off for drift.
On April 1st GOES 19 Arrives at 75.2°W, then GOES-19 Post-Drift Product Checkout at new location commences.
HRIT/EMWIN Broadcast Transition: While the GOES-16 spacecraft remains the broadcast platform, the High Rate Information Transmission (HRIT) and Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN) broadcast content will transition from GOES-16 derived products to GOES-19 derived products. The broadcast stream itself will continue uninterrupted from GOES-16. This transition will be reflected in the NOAA-Specific LRIT Header for GOES Imagery via a Product ID change from ’16’ (representing GOES-16) to ’19’ (representing GOES-19). All other data content within the HRIT/EMWIN broadcast is expected to remain consistent.
HRIT/EMWIN Broadcast Interruption: A brief interruption of the HRIT/EMWIN broadcast is anticipated during the transition to GOES-19 data. The precise timing of this outage is still under review. Further technical details and a more accurate outage window will be disseminated closer to the transition date.
Software changes required
Satdump is already set for this change to Product ID.
Goestools is set to use the new product ID, BUT users must use a new config file.
Sanchez may require a new json handler for GOES 19
Dartcom Systems are set for this change to Product ID.
Tables scroll horizontally on smaller windows and devices.
The most up-to-date schedule can be found at: https://www.goes-r.gov/users/transitionToOperations19.html
| Date (Based on 6/25/24 Launch) | GOES-16 | GOES-19 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Location | Activity | Location | Activity |
| 6/25/24 – 7/24/24 | 75.2°W | GOES-East Operations | Launch and Orbit Raising | |
| 7/25/24 – 1/25/25 | 89.5°W | GOES-19 PLT and PLPTFirst public ABI Image (Vis & IR) @ 89.5°WGRB turned on and L1b added upon beta maturity | ||
| 1/28/25 | GOES-19 Handover Readiness Review (HRR) | |||
| 1/29/25 | GOES-19 Handover to NOAA | |||
| 1/29/25 – 3/17/25 | GOES-19 Pre-Drift Product Checkout Planned for future events to avoid G17 Storage Checkout (3/10 – 3/29) | |||
| 3/17/25 – 4/1/25 | GOES-16 “nudge“ to 75.5°W | GOES-19 Drift from 89.5°W to 75.2°W ~1 deg/day driftGRB Off for drift | ||
| 4/1/25 | 75.5°W | GOES-16 in co-location configuration X-Band and S-Band downlink for colocation | 75.2°W | GOES-19 arrives at 75.2°W and instruments resumeX-Band and L-Band downlink after drift for colocation |
| 4/1/25 – 4/4/25 | GOES-16 in co-location configuration X-Band and S-Band downlink | GOES-19 Post-Drift Product Checkout at new location X-Band and L-Band downlink | ||
| 4/3/25 | GOES-19 Operational Transition Readiness Review (OTRR) | |||
| 4/4/25 | X-band downlink off and instruments shut downEnd GOES-16 GRB Broadcast | GOES-19 Declared operational GOES-EastBegin GOES-19 GRB broadcast / nominal distributionSAR/DCS/HRIT/EMWIN services transitioned to GOES-19 | ||
| 4/4/25 | Begin GOES-16 drift to 105°W Drift using LTRs~0.5 deg/day max drift rate | |||
| 6/4/25 | 105°W | GOES-16 arrival at 105°W followed by storage mode GOES-17 to relocate to 89.5W (Storage Location) after GOES-16 arrival confirmed successful | ||
