• An NWAVE outage at CBU disrupted GOES-18 and GOES-19 GRB distribution for 2 hours and 13 minutes
  • NOAA restored the feeds by shifting GOES-East and GOES-West GRB distribution to WCDAS

The fact

NOAA reported that GOES-18 and GOES-19 product distribution through GOES Rebroadcast was interrupted on 5 September after an NWAVE network outage at CBU. The disruption began at 18:03 UTC and affected all scenes and products delivered through GRB.

NOAA later moved GOES-East and GOES-West GRB distribution to WCDAS. At 20:54 UTC, it reported that all products were available again. The recorded disruption lasted two hours and 13 minutes, while investigation of the original network problem continued.

The incident was reported as a distribution problem rather than a failure of the satellites themselves. The interruption occurred after observations had reached the ground, where the terrestrial network used to deliver the products to users became unavailable.

The assessment

The outage interrupted access to GOES products even though the satellites themselves were not reported to have failed. For organisations that depend on the data, the ground distribution network is part of the same operational chain as the spacecraft: observations are only useful once they can reach the systems and people that use them.

NOAA had another distribution path available and moved both GOES-East and GOES-West GRB to WCDAS. That restored product availability without waiting for the original NWAVE path at CBU to recover. The supplied reports do not establish whether the switch was automatic or how much of the interruption was spent diagnosing the problem before rerouting began.

For BTW readers, the practical continuity question is how quickly an alternate ground path can take over when the primary route fails. Satellite-data availability therefore depends not only on the spacecraft but also on the terrestrial network carrying its products to users.

What to watch

Watch for NOAA to identify the cause of the NWAVE outage and clarify any changes to the GRB failover process. A future disruption with a shorter interval before traffic moves to the alternate site would provide evidence that the distribution path can recover more quickly.