Failing Satellite Sent Into High Retirement Orbit

WASHINGTON —  GOES-4, a weather satellite launched eight years ago, was sent into a high retirement orbit Tuesday, taking it out of the busy space highway used by most working communications and weather satellites.

Lou Barbieri, chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s satellite operations center, said GOES-4 had reached the end of its useful life and was put into a higher orbit to get it out of the way.

GOES-4 had spent its working life at 22,300 miles above the Earth, the busiest altitude for satellites. But, over a three-week period, satellite controllers commanded the GOES-4 to make six rocket firings that raised its orbit by 62 miles. Barbieri said that this would add one minute a day to the satellite’s orbit and cause it to slowly drift westward.

GOES-4, which cost $45 million and was expected to last no longer than five years, was launched in 1980. It initially was stationed over the Pacific Ocean and used infrared and visible-light instruments to capture images of weather patterns and storm formations over the western United States.

Barbieri said a malfunction of a primary imaging system and depletion of on-board fuel forced the agency to retire GOES-4.