GOES-16 ABI navigation assessment

Abstract

The US Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – R Series (GOES-R) was launched on November 19, 2016and was designated GOES-16 upon reaching geostationary orbit ten days later. After checkout and calibration, GOES-16 was relocated to its operational location of 75.2 degrees west and officially became GOES East on December 18, 2017. The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) is the primary instrument on the GOES-R series for imaging Earth's surface and atmosphere to significantly improve the detection and observation of severe environmental phenomena. A team supporting the GOES-R Flight Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center developed algorithms and software for independent verification of ABI Image Navigation and Registration (INR), which became known as the INR Performance Assessment Tool Set (IPATS). In this paper, we will briefly describe IPATS on top concept level, and then introduce the Landsat chips, chip registration algorithms, and how IPATS measurements are filtered. We present GOES-16 navigation (NAV) errors from flight data from January 2017 to May 2018. The results show a) IPATS characterized INR variations throughout the post-launch test phase; and b) ABI INR has improved over time as post-launch tests were performed and corrections applied. Finally, we will describe how estimated NAV errors have been used to assess and understand satellite attitude anomalies and scale errors etc. This paper shows that IPATS is an effective tool for assessing and improving GOES-16 ABI INR and is also useful for INR long-term monitoring.