Weather Satellite NOAA 15 Appears to have Failed (Again)

Back in April 2018 we posted how the NOAA-15 APT weather satellite that many RTL-SDR users enjoy receiving images from was having problems with it's scan motor resulting in image errors. The satellite recovered from that problem, but today the problem appears to be back and in a much worse way now.

Users on Reddit and Twitter have reported bad images coming in from NOAA 15. Over on Reddit u/rtlsdr_is_fun has provided a post showing an example of a corrupted image, and also provided an IQ and Audio file. On his blog [Karsey] has also posted some interesting looking corrupted images that he's received.

NASA have put out a statement indicating that yet again it is a problem with the scan motor, and the problem could be permanent.

The NOAA-15 AVHRR Scan Motor current began showing signs of instability at approximately 0400Z on July 23, 2019. At about 0435Z the current rose sharply to about 302mA where it has remained. Scan motor temperature began rising about the same time and is currently steady at ~26M-0C. Black body temperatures dropped sharply at about the same time. The instrument appears to no longer be producing data.
This behavior is consistent with a scan motor stall, but requires further investigation. Options for recovery are limited.

Having been launched in 1998 with a minimum spec of 2 years operation, NOAA-15 has already well outlived it's time and may finally be failing for real. We hope it will recover, but if not we should be thankful that Russian weather satellite Meteor M2-2 is now fully operational and transmitting beautiful high resolution images.