Tagged: NOAA

A Browsable Archive of Historical Weather Satellite Data

Thank you to Meti for writing in and sharing his browsable archive of historical weather satellite data (further information here). The archive is designed to store weather satellite data, whether in baseband IQ format, frames, or images, for scientific, educational, or preservation purposes.

With NOAA POES now fully shut down, the archive could be useful for individuals who didn't have the opportunity to decode a NOAA satellite for real, or perhaps for those who will want to relive their old hobby one day. Meti writes:

I've been working on setting a weather satellite data archive up; a lot of these incredible satellites are lost to time because people didn't save the data or had it deteriorate over the years, as has been proven with the ongoing POES decommissioning!

My goal is to create a browsable archive of historical satellite data that is downloadable and re-decodable by others who didn't and/or don't have the opportunity to catch the satellites in question themselves for scientific, educational, or just preservative purposes.

I've been working hard asking around various people and groups for the possibility of them keeping some data from as many different satellites as possible, but still have large gaps in several satellites. I was wondering if it were possible to try to publish this archival effort on the blog to try to get more outreach than word of mouth?

The archive currently stands at 430 gigabytes of data with about 100 more awaiting processing due to missing pipelines, already spanning more than 4 decades!

The archive currently stores a variety of different satellites and their data products, and some in the archive even have the raw IQ data, which occupies a significant amount of hard drive space.

However, Meti notes that many satellites are still missing from the archive, and he would like to reach out to the community for submissions. If you have any data from the following, please reach out to Meti.

GEO:
- Meteosat wefax
- Meteosat xRIT (Only have very limited data)
- GOES-N LRIT/MDL/GVAR/Sounder SD (Before it became EWS-G! So over the US)
- Elektro-L1 xRIT/RDAS

LEO:
- NOAA APT older than NOAA 12
- NOAA HRPT from any sat besides 15/18/19
- Seastar (OrbView-2) HRPT
- MetOp LRPT !!! (Metop-A transmitted for a few days) - Meteor M1 HRPT
- Meteor 3M APT/HRPT
- Meteor 1/Priroda/2 APT (other than Meteor 2-21. NOT M2!)
- FengYun 2A/B/C/D/E/F (S-)VISSR (Or LRIT)
- Fengyun 1 CHRPT

Catch-all
- Any L-band prior to ~2000
- Any VHF prior to ~1990
- Any anomalies - instrument failures leading to strange receptions (i.e. NOAA 17 failing APT broadcasts). THIS IS EXCLUDING NOAA-15 post 2020 and any user-side issues (weak reception, sample drops etc.)

You can find more information about the project and how to contribute on this linked page.

Satellite Archive. Currently over 430 GB Archived.
Satellite Archive. Currently over 430 GB Archived.

Amateur Weather Satellite Reception Beyond NOAA POES

With the recent decommissioning of NOAA POES (NOAA-15, NOAA-18, NOAA-19), many amateur weather satellite hobbyists might be asking themselves if the hobby is now dead.

While NOAA POES satellites were the easiest stepping stones into amateur weather satellite reception, the hobby has seen massive strides in enabling easier reception of other satellites over the past few years. Furthermore, in the near future, various new satellites are scheduled for launch, which should be receivable by amateurs.

Over on his blog, Jacopo has created a detailed post showing what satellites amateur hobbyists can still receive on the L-band and S-band. Some receivable satellites include Meteor-M,  Metop, Arctic Weather Satellite (AWS), STERNA, Elektro-L, GOES, EWS-G, Jason-3, UVSQSat-NG, DMSP, HINODE, ISS DATV and Proba 2.

While almost all of these satellites (apart from Meteor-M's LRPT 137 MHz signal) require a satellite dish and L-band, S-band, or X-band feed, recent products like our Discovery Dish can make setting up an L-band or S-band system significantly easier.

The Meteor-M series of satellites
The Meteor-M series of satellites

Saveitforparts: Receiving NOAA-15 One Last Time

Over on YouTube Gabe from the saveitforparts channel has uploaded a new video discussing the decommissioning of NOAA-15 and NOAA-19. We also previously posted about this topic a few days ago, if you are interested.

NOAA-15 was scheduled to shut down on August 12, 2025, but due to anomalies with NOAA-19, the decommissioning date of NOAA-15 has been extended by a few days until the week of August 18th. NOAA-19 has recently been experiencing transmitter failures, and it may be impossible to receive signals from it at the moment, despite its expected decommissioning date of August 19, 2025.

In the video, Gabe also rushes to try and receive signals from all transmitters on NOAA-15 one last time, setting up VHF, L-Band, and S-Band receivers. He experiences some issues with weak signals, interference, and recording failures, but ultimately succeeds in capturing all three signals during one of the final passes of NOAA-15.

US Government Shutting Down More Weather Satellites

NOAA 15 and 19 To Be Decommissioned Within the Next Two Weeks

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have recently announced that they are planning to decommission NOAA 15 and NOAA 19 on August 12, 2025 and August 19, 2025 respectively.

Update #7: NOAA has completed End of Life (EOL) testing activities for NOAA-15 and NOAA-19 and will commence the decommission process shortly. These two remaining satellites in the NOAA Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) Constellation are far beyond their primary mission design life. All have incurred subsystem and instrument degradation or failures and have entered a "twilight phase" where failure modes are increasingly likely. As a reminder, NOAA-18 was decommissioned on June 6, 2025 at 1740 UTC due to an unrecoverable failure to the S-Band transmitter. The remaining satellites in the legacy POES constellation will be decommissioned as follows: NOAA-15 on August 12, 2025 and NOAA-19 on August 19, 2025.

NOAA-15, NOAA-18, and NOAA-19 have long been core satellites for RTL-SDR users. For many of us, one of these would have been the first satellite from which we received weather data via the 137 MHz APT signal.

These NOAA satellites were marked end-of-life (EOL) back on June 16, 2025. However, EOL status still meant that transmissions would continue as normal. The EOL status simply marked that the satellites should no longer be used for mission-critical services, and that no attempts at repair or recovery would be made if needed.

On June 06, 2025, just before the EOL status officially went into effect, NOAA-18 was decommissioned and shut down due to a prior transmitter failure that left ground control in danger of being unable to control the satellite in the future. 

While nothing critical appears to have happened to the remaining NOAA-15 and NOAA-19 satellites as of yet, these are ageing satellites with various ongoing issues. NOAA-15 was launched in 1998, and NOAA-19 in 2009. They have long exceeded their design life.

As with NOAA-18's decommissioning, it does not appear that NOAA will deorbit the satellites. Instead, they will be left in orbit and put into a safe electrical state, with the transmitters shut down.

You can find more information about the decommissioning over on Carl Reinmann's usradioguy blog.

A Drawing of NOAA-19
A Drawing of NOAA-19

Updates To NOAA-18 Decommissioning: NOAA-18 Has Now Shut Down

A few days ago, we posted news that NOAA-18 was to begin decommissioning steps effective immediately due to a recent transmitter failure. Multiple reports have now confirmed that NOAA-18 has indeed shut down as of 1740 UTC 06/06/2025.

The usaradioguy.com blog has further updates for those who are interested. The official notice from NOAA can also be found here. Interestingly, it appears that NOAA-18 will not be de-orbiting as it lacks the required propulsion system to do so. So it will remain in orbit as space debris.

A user using a hobbyist station in Sweden also captured the shutdown remotely during APT image reception, as shown in the image below.

Farewell and thanks for your long service NOAA-18!

The final NOAA-18 APT pass captured by SA2KNG in Sweden, and processed remotely by Thomas:douwes.co.uk
The final NOAA-18 APT pass captured by SA2KNG in Sweden, and processed remotely by Thomas:douwes.co.uk

 

NOAA18 to Begin Decommissioning Steps Immediately

In April, we posted news that the NOAA satellites would be classed as 'end-of-life' on June 16, 2025. According to the statements, the satellites were expected to remain in orbit and continue transmitting data that radio hobbyists could use, but no attempts would be made to rectify failures.

However, recent news from Carl Reinmann's usaradioguy.com blog has indicated that NOAA 18 will begin decommissioning steps immediately on June 3, 2025. The steps involve disabling batteries and transmitters, depleting remaining propellants, transitioning data and operations, and finally deorbiting, or moving the satellite to a safer orbit.

NOAA-18 may have been chosen to be decommissioned earlier than NOAA-15 and NOAA-19 as the S-band downlink transmitter failed last month, resulting in severe image degradation. The satellite has also been running on backup gyros since 2017, and has suffered various transmitter and sensor failures over the years. 

NOAA-18

The Open-Weather Project’s Year Of Weather: June 15 NOAA EOL Nowcast Scheduled

Dr. Sasha Engelmann and Sophie Dyer, the team behind the Open-Weather project have recently announced a NOAA end-of-life nowcast to be recorded on June 15 2025. An open weather nowcast is a collaborative effort with users all around the world sending in weather satellite images that they have received locally with their home SDR setups.

NOAA satellite weather image APT transmissions have long been a staple of RTL-SDR hobbyists as they are among the easiest and cheapest satellite transmissions to receive. A simple V-dipole, RTL-SDR, and a computer are all that is required.

Sadly, it was recently announced that the NOAA satellites will be classified as end-of-life (EOL) on June 16 2025. However, the good news is that APT and HRPT data transmissions are expected to continue as usual. The end-of-life status indicates that NOAA will cease its own collection of data from these satellites and, hence, will no longer be distributing the datasets online. It also means that the satellites should no longer be used for mission-critical or scientific purposes and that no attempt will be made to fix a failing satellite.

These satellites have been operating well past their operational life, and given their advanced age, failure could come at any time. So the Open-Weather nowcast on June 15 2025 remains a nice way to honor their service to humanity.

You can see the last Year of Weather map created by the Open-Weather team and contributors here https://open-weather.community/yow/map/

The recent newsletter from the Open-Weather team explains how to participate in the June 15 nowcast.

OpenWeather Current Screenshot
OpenWeather Current Screenshot

NOAA 15, 18, 19 End of Life Announcement – But Transmissions will Continue for Hobbyists

Over on the USradioguy.com blog, we've seen news from Carl Reinmann noting that NOAA 15, 18, and 19 will be classed as end-of-life on June 16, 2025. These NOAA satellites are ones commonly used by RTL-SDR hobbyists to download weather satellite images, either via APT on 137 MHz with a V-dipole antenna, or via HRPT on 1.7 GHz with a tracking dish antenna.

Initially, it was thought that this meant that transmissions would cease. However, Carl Reinmann has now clarified with NOAA that transmissions of the APT and HRPT signals will continue as usual. Importantly, NOAA urges that these transmissions will only be "data of opportunity" and should no longer be used for operational purposes (not for anything safety-critical, for example). The transmissions will be fine for everyday hobbyist use.

However, this does mean that should the sensors on these satellites start failing, no attempt will be made to repair them from the ground, and in case of critical failures, the satellites will be decommissioned. In the past, we've seen NOAA 15's scan motor fail multiple times before coming back to life. It's not clear if the satellite received commands from the ground that helped recover it or if the motor just recovered by itself.

The NOAA satellites have lived well past their operational life.
The NOAA satellites have lived well past their operational life.