GOES-R GN&C Capabilities Used to Support Instrument Anomaly Investigations

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R program (GOES-R) has launched three of the latest generation geostationary weather satellites, of which all three are now fully operational. In this paper we discuss how the robust capabilities inherent in the design have been used to address off-nominal instrument performance observed in flight, and to subsequently provide acceptable data return from two of the instruments exhibiting off-nominal performance. The primary science instrument, the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), performed well on GOES-16, but on GOES-17 ABI exhibited anomalous IR-channel imaging early in the mission. Unfortunately, lower than expected thermal control capability did not cool the IR detectors to the expected temperatures. This paper presents spacecraft operations undertaken to calibrate the off-nominal performance of the instrument thermal control, and to develop spacecraft operational mitigation steps to recover near-nominal instrument performance. On GOES-16, the magnetometer (MAG) instrument experienced performance that was less than expected. As part of the MAG performance investigation, an improved calibration procedure was developed that required use of the entire GOES-R performance envelope. This paper presents an overview of the performance issues and provides details on the specific accommodations implemented to help maximize science return.