End of an Era: NOAA’s Polar Sats Wind Down Operations
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Summary
On 16 June, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will retire its remaining three Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES), as although they are still working, they are no longer being supported by NOAA.
However, two of the three satellites will still be usable for the foreseeable future, as they will continue to broadcast imagery of earth, but it is likely that they will eventually break and not be repaired, as they are no longer supported by NOAA, who said that users should switch to alternative sources for imagery.
NOAA made the decision as a precaution, after decommissioning one of the three satellites in June due to a technical issue, as two of the retired satellites suffered battery explosions in orbit, so they decided to decommissioned the remaining satellite of the same design before it suffered the same problem.
