After being knocked out of action last week by a serious control problem, one of the primary tools for U.S. weather forecasters will soon again be transmitting real-time weather imagery if a recovery plan succeeds.

Ground controllers in Maryland lost control of the GOES-12 satellite last Tuesday during a routine orbital maneuver. Officials said the weather observatory had problems coming out of the maneuver, meaning the satellite would not be able to resume transmitting imaging and sounding data as scheduled.

Normal operations are usually temporarily ceased during station-keeping maneuvers, but the problems caused the outage to be extended indefinitely.

The craft was tasked with collecting weather imagery of the eastern United States, the Caribbean, and much of the Atlantic Ocean. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite - or GOES - system typically includes two primary satellites and several backup observatories serving eastern and western sectors. The fleet is managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

GOES-12 was stationed over the equator at 75 degrees West longitude before the last week, but the botched maneuver put the satellite into an uncontrolled drift. Engineers estimate the craft is drifting about one-half degree eastward per day, and the satellite was located at about 72.9 degrees West by early Monday.

Controllers are preparing a recovery plan to bring the satellite back from the brink, beginning with a maneuver Tuesday to reverse its slow drift. A series of thruster firings scheduled to begin at 1146 GMT (6:46 a.m. EST) Tuesday will put GOES-12 on course to return to its orbital home by early next week, according to a NOAA status report.

Officials will then reactivate GOES-12's instruments and return the satellite to normal operations.

Designed for a lifetime of at least five years, GOES-12 was launched in July 2001. The craft was brought out of in-orbit storage and declared operational as the GOES-East satellite in April 2003.

Controllers brought the older GOES-10 satellite back into the active fleet to fill the void left by the beleaguered spacecraft. GOES-10 had been assigned to provide weather coverage for South America since being retired from the operational constellation last year.

GOES-10 will remain active until GOES-12 is fully recovered early next week.

Spacecraft operators investigating last week's anomaly determined it was caused by a leaky oxidizer line in a thruster.

Controllers were able to isolate the faulty thruster and return GOES-12 to normal attitude control mode on Friday.

NOAA officials do not expect to call up the GOES-13 satellite as a result of the past week's events. GOES-13 is currently the on-orbit spare for the constellation.