What is a solar intrusion and why does it affect GOES ?
A9. Solar intrusions are only a concern for GOES during the eclipse seasons (See Question 7). During a 48-day eclipse season as the sun moves from North-to-South (Autumnal Equinox) and South-to-North (Vernal Equinox), it will move closer to the Earth sensor chord, eventually entering the chords field-of-view. In order to prevent the Earth sensor from scanning the sun, the chord containing the intrusion will be inhibited from scanning (Question 6, Single-chord Ops). Since solar intrusions only occur during eclipse season, there will be an image outage whenever GOES is performing single-chord operations due to a solar intrusion.
