A Tribute to NOAA-18.

Описание: NOAA-18 (Also known as NOAA-N), launched in 2005, has finally completed its mission.
NOAA-18 was a polar orbiting weather satellite launched by NOAA and NASA used to collect weather information to make weather forecasts and collect scientific data about the Earth. NOAA-18 would pass over around the noon hours, along with NOAA-19. NOAA-18 had the strongest transmitter out of any of the NOAA satellites before it was decommissioned.

I got recommended a video by ‪@saveitforparts‬ which goes over the decommission of NOAA-18, however I was too late to the news and unfortunately missed being one of the last people to ever decode from NOAA-18.
After an issue with the S-band transmitter on the 31st of May, NOAA decided to decommission NOAA-18 on June 6th, 2025 at 17:40UTC. This video is a brief tribute to NOAA-18, one of the easiest satellites to get images from space off of.

The rest of the NOAA satellites (NOAA 15 and 19) are still operational, not as strong, but still quite strong. They are expected to be decommissioned on June 16th at 18:00 UTC, the transmitters will likely stay operational, but we don't know for how long.

If you want to see some of the images I've gotten from other weather satellites, check out my satellite imagery page on my website which can be found here: https://www.europa-productions.com/sa...
I'll eventually go through my NOAA-18 imagery and add some of the best to the Hall of Fame

Video terms:
indicates not mentioned in video but still relevant
APT - Automatic Picture Transmission, b&w analog image transmission from the NOAA POES satellites. Operate around 137MHz and can be easily picked up with a radio
HRPT - High Resolution Picture Transmission, Operational at L-band 1.7GHz, requires a dish to be received properly. Higher quality images, aswell as more data
GAC* - Global Area Coverage, Operates in the S-Band (2.2GHz) range. This is the system that failed on NOAA-18, resulting in NOAA deeming NOAA-18 to unsafe to be kept operational.
NOAA-15/19 - Two twin satellites of NOAA-18, not launched at the same time. NOAA-15 passing over after sunrise and sunset, NOAA-19 (and 18) passing over in the noon hours

Video sources:
NOAA-N Intro: https://images.nasa.gov/details/van_0...
NOAA-N Launch: https://images.nasa.gov/details/van_0...
NOAA-N Prime Separation: https://images.nasa.gov/details/van_0...
NOAA-N Animation: https://images.nasa.gov/details/ksc_0...

Music source:
Court and Page - Silent Partner

If you have any other questions about anything mentioned in this video, please leave a comment below, I'll be happy to answer!