This is actually pretty cool. I last worked with satellite data from GOES 8 and 9 in '98. I remember satellite images were sent sent every 3 hours and full disk images were 12 hours. I worked in a weather office where they had one pc running DOS that received the data from Satellite and saved the data where various HP-UX servers manipulated the data.

Last i remember, all data transmitted by these satellites are not encrypted, anyone can build a receiver to gather the data to generate satellite images.

One day I hope to have time to do this myself.