Eumetsat, the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, gave further details of an anomaly on its Metop-A satellite, which it believes could now be “non-correctable,” the agency announced July 31.
The anomaly was first observed at the start of July when the AHRPT transmitter was observed to have autonomously switched off. Eumetsat, alongside Astrium and the European Space Agency (ESA)’s European Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC), started investigations focusing on the status of the failed AHRPT sub-system.
The investigations have concluded that the failure on the nominal AHRPT is of a permanent, non-correctable nature, which means that the nominal AHRPT subsystem cannot be used for the remaining operational lifetime of the Metop-A spacecraft.