Open-weather network captures decommissioning of NOAA-18

An essay in satellite images

On Friday 6 June, members of the open-weather network captured the last images from NOAA-18, a satellite that had been transmitting unencrypted weather images to communities around the world for 20 years and 17 days.

NOAA’s decision to decommission NOAA-18 so urgently arose due to a recent power drop on NOAA-18’s S-band Transmitter (STX4). Carl Reinemann explains: “STX4 is the only remaining transmitter used for up-link (commanding) and downlink (telemetry and global science data from the recorder). Full recovery of the S-Band transmitter and its functionality is not possible, and therefore jeopardizes the ability to ensure safe operation of the spacecraft” (usradioguy.com).

On 5 June, NOAA announced it would completely decommission NOAA-18 on 6 June between 1733 and 1749 UTC.

From Cordoba, Argentina to Pune, India and Cornwall, UK, the open-weather network documented NOAA-18’s last hours and minutes of transmitting. These images tell a powerful story of the ‘end of life’ of a weather satellite that has served scientists, communities and the public for decades.

Alan Robertson and Richard Carter in Bathgate and York, respectively, both captured NOAA-18’s pass starting at 10:57 UTC over Europe.

An Automatic Ground Station maintained by Foto Colectania, Ràdio Web MACBA and Hangar in Barcelona, Spain received an image from the same NOAA-18 pass over Europe, around 11:03 UTC.

Iterable Pueyrredon Studio in Cordoba, Argentina capture a stunning image from NOAA-18 passing over South America at 14:46 UTC. Channel B has been turned off: the first sign of the imminent decommissioning of NOAA-18.

Heidi Neilson in Gilboa, New York, US confirms Channel B has been turned off by recording this image from NOAA-18 at 16:07 UTC.

Cosmos Astronomy Club at MIT World Peace University capture an image showing both of NOAA-18’s channels empty of data at 17:16 UTC. Telemetry data and sync markers still frame the image, suggesting the satellite’s rotators are still active, but its sensors have been turned off.

Zack Wettstein in Seattle, US is the first in the open-weather network to document NOAA-18’s total silence at 19:31 UTC.

The Seaweed Institute and Goonown Growers in Cornwall, UK confirm NOAA-18’s radio silence at 22:31 UTC.

When NOAA-18 was turned-off completely, the satellite was crossing Svalbard Satellite Station on the remote island of Spitsbergen, between mainland Norway and the North Pole. This is the location where the satellite’s data downlink was likely transferred after the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration awarded the defence contractor Parsons Corporation a $16 million contract to manage NOAA-19, NOAA-18 and NOAA-15’s Extended Life operations.

NOAA-18’s projected line of travel between 1733 and 1749 UTC on 5 June 2025. Source: N2YO.com

For open-weather, there is a politics to building and maintaining infrastructure to listen to systems at the threshold of transformation. In the long tradition of radio amateurs, cyberfeminists, and anticolonial practitioners, we feel that it is our responsibility to develop literacies with systems that capture and represent our planet – so that we are able to name and the violence they enact, as well as recognise their alternative meanings and potential openings for imagining otherwise.

For NOAA-18’s decommissioning, the collective was in Barcelona, Spain. Sasha and Soph rushed from their lunch break to nearby Ciutadella Park to tune to the satellite’s transmission for one last time.

open-weather’s Sasha and Soph (pictured) receive their last NOAA-18 transmission under the shade of a magnolia tree in Ciutadella Park, Barcelona.

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