They will continue to orbit for about 150 years, slowly falling towards earth until the drag from the atmosphere burns them up.

"Like many older satellites, the POES satellites do not have thrusters to support a controlled reentry into Earth’s atmosphere at the end of their mission life. Instead, once passivated, they are safely powered down, placed in a non-operational state, and left in a stable orbit. Without onboard propulsion or significant atmospheric drag at their current altitude, NOAA estimates they will remain in orbit for roughly 150 years before gradually reentering the atmosphere and disintegrating."[1]

[1] https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/legacy-orbit-noaa-decommiss...

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egorfine 6 days ago | parent [-]

It sucks they power it down

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jandrese 5 days ago | parent [-]

Probably to recover the frequency for a newer satellite. The spectrum they transmit on is quite scarce.

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pbhjpbhj 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

How locked down are they? Should I expect to see a hacker conference talk "how i revived a weather satellite"?

Maybe once they're turned off they're irrecoverable?

	▲	sephamorr 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		There have been numerous issues in the past with 'dead' satellites waking back up and activating transmitters again, generally making a mess of the spectrum. Some satellites have pyro-fuses on the power lines from the solar arrays that are fired during passivation to make absolutely sure that the sat doesn't ever recharge and wakeup.
	▲	rajer 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's not impossible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT2i7mFpFxM

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747fulloftapes 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree they may want to reuse the spectrum, but I doubt it would be for a new satellite. At least not the stuff in the lower VHF band, around 137 MHz which is awfully close to the airband reservation used for VDL Mode 2 - around 135-137 MHz, IIRC. VDLM2 is in many ways a more modern ACARS.

They'd more likely use higher bands on newer satellites to get more throughput. The GOES birds transmit up around 1.7GHz, afaik and likely higher as well.

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immibis 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You have to have an antenna pointing at the satellite though. That's an additional layer of selectivity.

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egorfine 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Makes total sense, thank you