Suitland Program Office GOES the Distance for NASA-NOAA

SUITLAND, Md. (6/1/06) — The May 24 launch and deployment of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-N, was the culmination of a number of years of preparation by a team of employees of The Aerospace Corporation who are collocated with our customer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) complex in Suitland, Maryland.

While Aerospace supported the launch of the Delta IV rocket that carried the payload into orbit, the Aerospace Suitland Program Office, part of The Aerospace Corporation's Civil and Commercial Operations, has provided mission, payload, and operations support to the NASA-NOAA program since the mid-1990s.

GOES-N, which was redesignated GOES-13 once in orbit, is the latest in a new series of Earth-monitoring satellites and accompanying ground systems. Its primary mission is to keep constant vigil for atmospheric indications of severe weather conditions such as tornadoes, flash floods, hailstorms, and hurricanes.

Following the May 24 launch and initial contractor check of satellite operations, the spacecraft was turned over to NASA and NOAA for six months of postlaunch testing. Once testing is completed, the satellite will be placed in an on-orbit storage mode where it will be able to rapidly replace an existing GOES satellite, if necessary.

Aerospace employees at NOAA’s Satellite Operations Control Center were instrumental in helping NOAA and NASA teams prepare for operating this new satellite and ground system series. They provided daily support to GOES-N’s subsystem, system, and end-to-end testing and were closely involved in GOES-N launch simulations, providing crew performance evaluations and training of NOAA and contractor satellite and ground-system engineers in preparation for the launch.

Aerospace senior project engineer Thomas R. Hill, NOAA Suitland Program Office, specializes in spacecraft operations and is the lead engineer for the spacecraft’s fault-protection system, which autonomously monitors on-board systems and can take corrective action if needed. He is serving as one of the four test directors for the post-launch test phase of the GOES-13 mission.

Aerospace employee John Overstrom, senior project engineer, has been involved in ground system development, with a main focus on processing and archiving of spacecraft state-of-health telemetry. These systems allow engineers to analyze data at timescales ranging from milliseconds to years. Overstrom’s efforts have brought about improvements in the system’s functionality and reliability.

Tina Baucom, senior project engineer at The Aerospace Corporation, served on the independent readiness review team for GOES-13 and as lead evaluator of mission simulations prior to launch. Because of her extensive knowledge of the spacecraft’s imager and sounder instruments, which are similar to those flown on previous GOES spacecraft, Baucom routinely supports ground-system and spacecraft testing of these systems.

In addition to being involved in all aspects of procedure development and operations for the GOES-13 launch, the Aerospace Suitland Program Office provides engineering support to the NOAA-National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Services Office of Systems Development at the new NOAA Satellite Operations Facility (NSOF).

The Aerospace team assists in ground system development for new NOAA satellite missions and upgrades to existing missions. Aerospace also supports NOAA’s Office of Satellite Operations, which will soon be relocated to the NSOF.

The Aerospace Corporation, based in El Segundo, Calif., is an independent, nonprofit company that provides objective technical analyses and assessments for national security space programs and selected civil and commercial space programs in the national interest.

Media Inquiries: Contact Dave Jonta, 310-336-5041, david.l.jonta@aero.org