Zombie Satellite! (EDIT)

Since I typed this, it appears that "Galaxy 15" was not the problem. However, maybe it was a nice "drill" for when "Galaxy 15" threatens NOAAport next week! LOL Read on to original post..

Justin Logan is hard at work tonight making maps that we can "manually" enter current conditions onto. Normally, the current conditions update automatically, but something has screwed that up today.

In April, a satellite named Galaxy 15 stopped taking commands from Earth. It was launched in 2005 and was suppose to last 15 years. It only lasted about 4.5 years... well, kind of. You see, it still has power!  It's flying about 22,300 miles above us and is out of control. This has happened in the past, but this is the first time that a satellite has been uncontrollable while still trying to find signals to rebroadcast.

Today, it has interrupted the feed from the NOAAPORT Satellite that feeds us several pieces of data. This is not something that was a complete shock, but I'm worried this may be an ongoing problem. In fact, I see this notice that says we may experience more problems in a week:

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/dm-cgi-bin/chgshow.pl?fn=DMPD111005.txt

I hope that does not happen!

UPDATE: As I was typing this, Justin sent me a text saying that the data was returning! WooHoo!

Ryan