Earth observation

NOAA publishes Suomi NPP data-delivery shutdown notice

The November 2 status update records a 15:40 UTC service cutoff and directs users to NOAA-21 and NOAA-20; orbital disposal remains planned for December.

03 November 2026 at 9:57 am ISTBy Science Desk2 min read

Updated 03 November 2026 at 9:57 am IST: This report follows our October 27 coverage of the scheduled Sentinel-5P auxiliary-product cutoff, adding NOAA’s November 2 completed data-delivery status and keeping the two reported cutoff times distinct.

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Suomi NPP above Earth in a NOAA visualization published with its October 19, 2026 retirement plan. This rendering identifies the spacecraft; it is not an image of the November 2 service shutdown. Credit: NOAA; reproduced unchanged.

15:40 UTCNOAA-reported November 2 service shutdown

NOAA has published a completed-shutdown notice for Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) data delivery. The agency’s November 2 update states that distribution to users ended at 15:40 UTC that day and that direct-broadcast transmission was disabled at the same time. It directs users to NOAA-21 as the primary replacement and NOAA-20 as the secondary source of science products.

The new status paragraph updates a notice that still carries inconsistent older metadata: an October 30 issue date and an 18:00 UTC initial-impact field. NOAA’s satellite-alert index dates Update #4 to November 2 at 18:00 UTC. The completed-status paragraph explicitly gives 15:40 UTC as the shutdown time.

This follows the scheduled Sentinel-5P cloud-support cutoff covered here on October 27. Copernicus’s October 26 advisory specified a separate 13:00 UTC cutoff on November 2 for observations used to generate auxiliary cloud products from Suomi NPP’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument. That advisory states that Sentinel-5P science-product quality is unaffected; its product-specific time remains distinct from NOAA’s completed distribution shutdown.

The service closure precedes the planned disposal of the spacecraft. NOAA’s October 19 retirement plan schedules orbit-lowering from December 1 over approximately 12 days before reentry over the South Pacific. Those manoeuvres remain a future step.

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