Charlie Maloney is the GOES N-P Program Manager for Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems within Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. In this role, Maloney is responsible for final systems testing and launch preparations of the nexgen series of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites built for NASA and NOAA.

Maloney brings more than 26 years of satellite expertise to Boeing in engineering and management, including the development of new product designs and requirements of communications and earth observation satellites and managing a diverse workforce of engineering professionals. For the past 11 years, Maloney has been an integral member of the GOES N-P Program. Prior to his role as Program Manager, Maloney was Deputy Program Manager and Chief Engineer of the GOES N-P Program, where he was responsible for the technical integrity of the spacecraft and ground segment... including end-to-end systems engineering and image navigation and registration. Maloney led the program through the final systems testing and launch of the first spacecraft in the series, GOES-N, in May 2006. Maloney coordinated in-orbit testing of GOES-N and spacecraft acceptance by NASA and NOAA in December 2006.

Maloney’s experience includes the overall design and integration of the GOES N-P spacecraft, including the spacecraft structure, spacecraft subsystems and instrument accommodation. Before joining the GOES N-P Program, Maloney served as the JCSAT-3 Spacecraft Manager with Hughes Electronics Corporation on the JCSAT communications satellite program. He guided the first JCSAT spacecraft through systems testing, launch, and successful in-orbit testing in 1995 and served as Systems Engineering Manager for the launches of JCSAT-4 in 1996 and JCSAT-5 in 1997.

From 1990 to 1992, Maloney led the docking and interface design team for Intelsat VI F-3 Reboost Mission. The program was designed to allow the Space Shuttle’s astronauts to rescue the stranded F-3 spacecraft by carrying a 22,000-pound solid rocket motor up to orbit and attaching the massive motor and electrical connections to the F-3 spacecraft before sending it back out to space.

SatMagazine discussed a variety of topics surrounding GOES and Boeing with Charlie.

SatMagazine
Charlie, in January of 1998, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center awarded Boeing the contract for three Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites to be operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, otherwise known as NOAA. How did Boeing manage to acquire this important award?

Charlie Maloney
Starting with the launch of the first Applications Technology Satellite in December 1966, Boeing brings to the table more than 42 years of experience building advanced weather satellites. A key part of that experience was the development of the GOES D-H satellites. These were spin stabilized satellites and they used the spin of the satellite for pointing stability and to achieve the East-West scan of the Earth. In 1986, Boeing developed the HS601 satellite, a body-stabilized spacecraft, which was compatible with the current generation of Imagers which used integrated scan mirrors to achieve both the North-South and East-West scanning of the instruments.

In 1995, Boeing started the development of a star tracker based attitude control system, with the intent of capturing high precision pointing programs such as GOES. These investments demonstrated Boeing’s commitment to provide next-generation, best-of-industry environmental systems to NASA and NOAA, and ultimately enabled Boeing to propose a superior satellite and ground system design to meet NASA and NOAA’s performance requirements. Upon completion of N through P, Boeing will have built a total of eight spacecraft in the GOES series.

SatMagazine
Why are the GOES satellites important and what are their capabilities? Are there any spatial conditions that would prevent GOES satellites from providing accurate information? How do solar flares, which are on the increase, affect GOES-O?

Charlie Maloney
The GOES satellites represent a critical national asset. They provide the only publicly available source of Earth imaging from the geostationary orbit, allowing imaging from the full Earth disk down to rapid scanning of intense weather regions. This imaging is performed in visible and infrared frequency bands and forms a vital part of NOAA’s mission to understand and predict changes to the Earth’s environment, delivering enhanced weather forecasting capability to protect life and property.

In addition to the imaging capabilities, GOES-O has a set of solar observation instruments that allow for imaging and monitoring of the sun in X-ray and Extreme Ultra-violet, for prediction and early warning of solar flares and coronal mass ejections. GOES-O also has a set of Space Environmental Monitoring instruments which allow scientists to track the Earth’s magnetic fields and the high energy particles impinging on the Earth’s atmosphere. As you would imagine from this description, the GOES-O satellite is specifically designed with protection against the harsh environments of space, including the very high energy particles and solar flares it is designed to observe.

SatMagazine
Will GOES-O offer additional features not available when GOES-N was built and launched? If so, what will those features offer and accomplish?

Charlie Maloney
The GOES-O Imager has an enhancement in its 13µm channel. Resolution has been improved from 8 km to 4km. The finer spatial resolution provides for an improved cloud top product, height of atmospheric motion vectors, and volcanic ash detection.

SatMagazine
It must be quite challenging for Boeing to have to deal with two government agencies... NASA and NOAA. How is this accomplished? In particular, how do the various teams interact with one another?

Charlie Maloney
Boeing, NASA, and NOAA have established an outstanding working relationship. As all parties recognize the importance of having strong relationships — from the highest management levels to the engineers performing the detailed work — we focused early on to become a strong, integrated team. The only way to establish and maintain these strong and constructive relationships is through trust. We have established trust with our NASA and NOAA customers by taking every commitment we make very seriously and using all the assets of The Boeing Company to provide the most advanced weather satellites ever built with a significant improvement over earlier environmental systems. Likewise, we at Boeing recognize that the people of NASA and NOAA are dedicated to providing world-class systems to the nation. We consider it an honor to have the opportunity to help them complete their mission. With these common objectives, we work together very well.

SatMagazine
How well is GOES-N performing?

Charlie Maloney
GOES-N was renamed GOES-13 after successfully achieving geosynchronous orbit and is performing very well, indeed. Although GOES-13 remains as the on orbit spare, it has been often used as an active backup for the current operational satellites, GOES-11 and GOES-12. GOES-13 has been demonstrated through on orbit testing to meet or exceed all performance requirements with regard to image location accuracy and repeatability, the primary mission of the GOES satellite.

GOES N-P images are two to three times more accurate than the previous generation of GOES satellites. The higher accuracy is achieved through greater knowledge of the spacecraft’s orientation through the use of star trackers. The star trackers stare into the heavens and detect the pattern of stars. As the pattern of stars is unique at each location of the sky, it provides a highly accurate means of knowing and maintaining the spacecraft’s orientation. The repeatability comes from a highly stable spacecraft structure that is not affected by the normal thermal variations that occur in space. That accuracy leads to better knowledge of the location, speed and direction of severe weather systems, such as hurricanes, and ultimately translates into the ability to protect lives and property.

SatMagazine
With Boeing as the Prime, what other companies are involved as subcontractors on the GOES projects? What do those companies provide to Boeing in the form of expertise and product?

Charlie Maloney
Boeing has several key partners on the GOES N-P Program. Integral Systems Inc. (ISI) provided the ground hardware and software elements. ISI is the prime contractor to NASA/NOAA for the previous generation ground system, and their expertise allowed the GOES N-P ground system to integrate seamlessly into the existing infrastructure. Carr Astronautics provided engineering support for the Image Navigation and Registration system, which uses a ground/space control loop to provide the high accuracy of the imagery. Applied Technology Corporation (ATC) provided the majority of the space environmental monitoring (SEM) instruments. Many of these instruments were enhancements of the previous generation of GOES SEM instruments that ATC also provided. This enabled the most cost-effective solution for the government.

In addition, NASA used two associate contractors to develop and produce the three primary instruments that were provided to Boeing as government furnished equipment. The Imager and Sounder were provided by ITT and are nearly identical to the instruments on the previous series, save for the enhancements to the Imager in the 13µm channel. The Solar X-ray Imager was developed by Lockheed Martin’s Space Applications Laboratory. Their extensive experience in the development of the solar observation instruments was brought to bear on this project.

SatMagazine
The GOES-N launch was conducted at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Will the same hold true for the launches of GOES-O and GOES-P? What will be the impact of the GOES-O launch?

Charlie Maloney
GOES-O and GOES-P will also be launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. GOES-O is the second satellite in the series and completes the constellation pair to provide complete coverage of the western hemisphere in orbit with GOES-13. GOES-O, coupled with the on-orbit GOES-13, will greatly improve weather monitoring and provide earlier and more accurate predictions of severe weather events.

SatMagazine
Charlie, can you tell us anything about the next satellite in this series, GOES-P?

Charlie Maloney
GOES-P is part of the GOES N-P series of satellites and carries the same technology and instruments aboard as does GOES-O. The satellite will be removed from storage shortly after the launch of GOES-O to start final in-factory preparations and testing prior to delivery to Florida for pre-launch checkout and integration onto the Delta IV launch vehicle. At this time, the launch of GOES-P is expected to be in early 2010.

SatMagazine
What does the future hold for GOES satellites as far as builds and launches? Does Boeing have a handle on what will occur for the next-gen constellation?

Charlie Maloney
Boeing has more than four decades of experience in the development of highly advanced satellites for earth observation and weather forecasting. The GOES N-P series demonstrates our ability to deliver quality products to our NASA and NOAA customers. We are pleased that NASA has reconvened its source selection board and will award a new contract for the GOES-R competition. We refer your readers to NASA Headquarters Public Affairs, 202-358-1600, for further information. We remain committed to NASA and to its mission of continuing to operate a highly capable weather monitoring system.

SatMagazine
What Boeing teams are involved in GOES-O? Who manages the teams, their history, and their counterparts at the subcontracting companies?

Charlie Maloney
At this point in the GOES N-P program, we have three main teams supporting GOES-O: the Launch Team, the Mission Team, and the Systems Engineering Team. The Launch Team performs the final tasks to put the satellite in flight configuration, fuels the satellite, and performs one last set of pre-launch tests. With the satellite fueled and in the fairing, only the test engineers remain to maintain the satellite until launch. The Mission Team will take control of the satellite immediately after separation from the launch vehicle. They will fly the satellite to its final orbit and perform a set of health checks, prior to turning the satellite over to NOAA’s Mission Team who will perform the post-launch test program. The Systems Engineering Team supports both of the other teams and addresses any emerging satellite issues to make the satellite has a clean bill of health before it launches.

SatMagazine
What international agencies or governments also have access to GOES constellation imagery and data?

Charlie Maloney
The great thing about GOES images and data is that they are available to anyone for free. You can set up a ground receive antenna and get the data directly from the satellite, but the easiest way to get the data is from the Internet. There are dozens of websites out there with GOES data. A great web page with links to many of those websites can be found here: http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/text/goesds.html. A favorite of mine is the GOES Project Hot Stuff site: http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/text/hotstuff.html. It contains scrapbooks of historical imagery and videos. My all-time favorite is the first full disk image of the Earth from GOES-13: >http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/goes/060622_goes13_small.gif.

SatMagazine
How will this generation of GOES satellites make a difference when the next Hurricane Katrina hits?

Charlie Maloney
Fundamentally, the GOES N-P series provides more precise data to the forecasters. All weather forecasting is based on modeling of weather systems. The more precise the data that is fed into the model, the more accurate the prediction will be of the future path and intensity. That accuracy has two major effects in the case of a major hurricane like Katrina. First, the better we can model these hurricanes, the smaller the potential landfall zone that will be predicted. From NOAA analysis, every mile of coastline that we can avoid evacuating saves one million dollars to the economies of the affected areas. But, more important than that is the potential to save lives. As predictions get more accurate, people will have more faith in those predictions and take the appropriate action to get out of harm’s way. New Orleans is my home town, so I have a very real connection to the consequences of Katrina. We can’t stop the forces of nature that manifest most awesomely in hurricanes like Katrina. But with greater knowledge, made possible by technologically advanced satellites like GOES-O, we can reduce the impact on our fellow citizens.

SatMagazine
Finally, Charlie, what one thing do you want people to know about GOES-O?

Charlie Maloney
I would like people to understand the commitment and dedication of the integrated team from NASA, NOAA, Boeing, and all of the contractors that made this amazing satellite possible. There are many people on this team that have dedicated the majority of their careers to this program. They do it because they believe in the mission of the GOES Program: To work as an effective, integrated Government & Industry team to ensure the economical, timely, and successful delivery of a highly technical Geosynchronous Space and Earth Environment Observing Satellite System used to predict the weather and climate change; to protect life, property, and the nation’s vital interests; and to enhance the global quality of life.

SatMagazine
We appreciate the time you set aside to help us more fully understand the GOES project. Thanks, Charlie.