First GOES -13 Image Navigation & Registration Tests Confirm Improved Performance

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite “GOES-13” is the first of a new generation of United States weather satellites. Launched in May 2006, it incorporates new features designed to improve Image Navigation & Registration (INR) performance. The objectives of this paper are to present GOES-13 on-orbit INR performance, make comparisons against the previous GOES satellite series (GOES-8 through -12), and to explore the associated improvements to spacecraft operations. INR system performance was evaluated during operational scenarios including normal daily operations (which included momentum unloads), station keeping maneuvers, yaw flips, eclipse operations, and station change maneuvers. The PreObs Residual Plotter software was used to evaluate trends in observation residuals, and the Performance Analysis System software was used to calculate the percentage of residuals that met performance specifications. For each scenario, postlaunch tests showed that the INR system successfully passed all specification requirements and provided significant improvement versus the previous GOES series.