GOES 6

About This Satellite

GOES-6 launched on April 28, 1983, having been known as GOES-F before launch. Its Visible Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer Atmospheric Sounder, or VAS, supplied day and night cloud imagery and temperature and moisture profiles. The spacecraft combined an Earth-weather observing role with a separate space-environment measurement record.

One spacecraft changed viewpoint to support a two-satellite system

Initially assigned to GOES-West near 136 degrees west, GOES-6 moved toward 98 degrees west after GOES-5 lost its imaging capability. It returned west when GOES-7 entered service. These moves changed the weather system's viewing geometry; the original longitude was not a permanent property of the spacecraft.

The 1989 imager failure did not define every archive endpoint

NOAA dates the VAS failure to January 21, 1989, ending its direct-readout pictures and soundings. The later space-weather measurements discussed below belong to different instruments. Their presence does not mean that the weather imager recovered, nor does an image-data endpoint establish when every spacecraft function ended.

Mission reference: NOAA NESDIS: GOES-6 observing role, relocations and VAS failure. Editorial review: 2026-09-15.

A magnetic-field gap can be an instrument-quality flag

NOAA's archive notes flag GOES-6 HE and HN magnetic components as bad from September 9, 1991. The suspected cause was an error locating Earth's limb when resolving the transverse measurement. HP was retained, but its absolute calibration remained uncertain. A blank component in this product is consequently not evidence that the corresponding magnetic field vanished; it is a warning about the measurement.

Reference: NOAA NCEI: GOES-6 magnetic-component quality flags and calibration limits.

Detector aging could resemble a decline in particle activity

The same notes describe radiation damage beginning in 1986 and progressively reducing counting efficiency in a GOES-6 detector component. At the time documented, the E1 and P4 channels recorded only a small fraction of the proper rates. A falling count rate is therefore not automatically an environmental trend. These are historical instrument cautions, not a statement about a presently operating detector.

Reference: NOAA NCEI: GOES-6 radiation damage and reduced particle-counting efficiency.

An archive can intentionally omit a damaged channel

NASA's historical ISTP instrument description explicitly excludes GOES-6 E1 electron data from its dataset because of radiation damage. It also warns that the increasingly inclined orbit complicates magnetic-field interpretation. The practical lesson is to check both product selection and sampling geometry before comparing records. An omitted series is not necessarily a failed download, and a catalog position does not supply the missing calibration information.

Reference: NASA ISTP historical archive: GOES-6 E1 exclusion and inclined-orbit interpretation.

Reading this orbital snapshot

Based on TLE epoch: 2026-09-05. Estimated altitude ranges from 35,777 km at perigee to 35,802 km at apogee, a difference of 24 km. The orbital period is about 1436.2 minutes. Eccentricity 0.00029 indicates a nearly circular path. In a two-body approximation, perigee speed is 1.00 times apogee speed. These are mean-element estimates, not instantaneous measurements. Distance per orbit uses an ellipse approximation.

Saved build snapshot. If a valid TLE is retrieved, this explanation and the orbit panel update together. Otherwise this dated snapshot is retained.

Ground track is not sensor coverage

An inclination of 10.07 degrees implies approximate geocentric ground-track limits of 10.1 degrees north and south. This is a prograde orbit, moving in the same general direction as Earth rotation. The plotted line marks the point beneath the object. It does not represent camera coverage, radio reception, or a guaranteed visible pass.

Is it fixed above one longitude?

The snapshot period is 1436.2 minutes. A sidereal day is about 1,436.07 minutes. Height alone does not establish a geostationary orbit: the period must match Earth rotation and the path must be circular and equatorial. This catalog uses a five-minute period tolerance for near-geosynchronous labels; near-geostationary additionally requires inclination at most 1 degree and eccentricity at most 0.01. These are browsing categories, not evidence of station-keeping or a fixed longitude.

Accuracy and missing information

The introductory record describes the build snapshot. The orbital snapshot explanation and orbit panel share any successfully retrieved TLE; check the displayed epoch. Reentered objects retain historical data only. Mission history is not rewritten by TLE updates. TLE/SGP4 positions are predictions and can change after maneuvers or updated observations. The 14-day stale-data cutoff is a display safeguard, not an accuracy guarantee. Local passes are geometric predictions, not a visibility forecast. No verified operator or mission status means unknown, not active. Do not use this catalog for collision avoidance or operational flight decisions.

Catalog sources: CelesTrak SATCAT: NORAD 14050 · GCAT: S14050 (source update 2026 Sep 4 2345:57). Supplementary metadata: SatNOGS DB, retrieved 2026-09-05T12:57:25.375Z. Page assembled 2026-09-15. GCAT phase codes describe trajectory phases, not mission health.

Learn more: TLE data · Perigee and apogee · Ground tracks · JOT (Jewawud Live Orbital Map)

Satellite Details