NASA, NOAA's Satellite Ground

Cynthia M. O'Carroll September 13, 2000
NASA/Goddard
(Phone: **********)

Patricia Viets
NOAA/NESDIS
(Phone: **********)

RELEASE NO. 00-113

NASA, NOAA's Satellite Ground System Ready If Hurricane Should Wallop Wallops

On the first anniversary of Hurricane Floyd, which brought
flooding rains, high winds and rough seas along a good portion of the
Atlantic seaboard on September 14 -18, 1999, NOAA stands ready with a
new backup station for its satellite Command and Data Acquisition
Station located at Wallops, Va. The backup station, at NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will ensure that data from
NOAA's geostationary satellite that watches over the Atlantic Ocean
will continue to flow if the primary site at Wallops is disabled by a
hurricane.

The station at Wallops acquires and distributes a continuous
flow of data from NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental
Satellites (GOES) to users around the country. NOAA's environmental
satellite system is composed of two types of satellites:
geostationary operational environmental satellites (GOES) for
national, regional, short-range warning and "now-casting," and
polar-orbiting environmental satellites (POES) for global, long-term
forecasting. Both kinds of satellites are necessary for providing a
complete global weather monitoring system. GOES images are seen daily
on television weather forecasts, monitoring cloud cover and
hurricanes and providing special imaging of local severe weather
systems.

The new backup station in Greenbelt will ensure data from NOAA's
GOES satellites continue to flow if the Wallops station is threatened
or hit by a hurricane. A new 54-foot antenna, weighing over a million
pounds, is designed to operate through a Category 3 hurricane (130
mph); and can survive a Category 5 hurricane (155+ mph). The antenna
has transmitters for sending commands to the satellites, and
receivers for collecting information from the satellites.

The backup station will normally be operated in a standby mode.
Engineers, programmers and operators from the Wallops site will be
deployed as necessary when a hurricane threatens Wallops, or for
other foreseeable emergencies. For unforeseeable emergencies, a rapid
response team from NOAA's Satellite Operations Control Center in
Suitland, Md., will initially bring the station on-line until
personnel arrive from Wallops.

Pictures of the backup facility are online at:
ftp://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/ribboncutting

The Wallops Command Data Acquisition Station home page is located at: http://wcda.noaa.gov/

-end-

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It's all very large.

[This message has been edited by Bowser (edited September 14, 2000).]