#satellites

26-04-06

There have been huge cuts to science funding in the US. Much has been written about the more important losses but one is personal.

NOAA's Polar Operational Environmental Satellites were a set of weather satellites launching from 1978 to 2009. Of those ~20 satellites, only 3 were still operational at the start of 2025. Their replacements, the JPSS program, are already in orbit (and at risk from anti-science garbage). Realistically, POES was going to hit end-of-life now separate from any budget cuts.

So why does it matter? Because getting data from these satellites was easy. One of their broadcasts was sent using APT; a protocol from the 60s that anyone can process without any experience. It's perfectly doable with a $30 radio, 2 aluminum rods, and a laptop (or even an android phone).

NOAA 15, the last survivor, was being shut down the week of Aug 18. It had been almost 10 years since I had last worked with 15 but I couldn't let it be decommissioned without seeing through its eyes one last time. My family took a trip to a nearby open-space, I set up my cheap dipole antenna, and plugged it into my laptop.

It was like hearing from an old friend.

You know when a website takes a long time to load and you see pictures come in 1 row at a time? As the satellite orbits, it constantly takes a picture beneath itself and broadcasts that out. (It doesn't actually photograph the ground beneath it. It only grabs information on cloud formations, rain, temps, etc. The image processing adds in the Earth beneath this data.) These little "cycles" you hear are basically it transmitting a picture 1 row at a time. That picture just happens to be of the Earth.

In the late 20th century, globally-available satellites like these were critical for weather prediction in countries that lacked the resources to launch their own. I can't speak to how helpful these satellites still were for weather prediction now that modern alternatives exist. But I know for a fact that they were still inspiring people just like me around the world.

Getting an image from a satellite is always awesome. But what really made it special was being able to share that with my family. We got to take an impromptu trip to somewhere beautiful.

Another family walked by and asked what we were doing. One of them used to work for NOAA and was so excited that I was collecting this data. We ended up talking to him for a while about changes in science funding and how his life has changed this year as an immigrant.

The White House has instructed NASA employees to terminate two major, climate change-focused satellite missions.

As NPR reports, Trump officials reached out to the space agency to draw up plans for terminating the two missions, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatories. They've been collecting widely-used data, providing both oil and gas companies and farmers with detailed information about the distribution of carbon dioxide and how it can affect crop health.

One is attached to the International Space Station, and the other is collecting data as a stand-alone satellite. The latter would meet its permanent demise after burning up in the atmosphere if the mission were to be terminated.