Npoess program

There are also potential satellite data gaps in the DOD and European polar satellite programs, which provide supplementary information to NOAA forecasts. Until these risks are mitigated and resolved, civilian and military satellite data users may not have the information they need for timely weather forecasting, thereby risking lives, property, and commerce.

Environmental satellites provide critical data used in forecasting weather and measuring variations in climate over time. To do so, GAO analyzed program management, contract, cost, and risk data, attended executive program reviews, and interviewed agency and contractor officials. Making the right choice now will save money and lives far into the future. Instead of sensors that take a decade or more to develop, these new systems could be upgraded incrementally.

Sadly, it showed once again that the US space industry is facing a crisis. The problem is not just the workforce in and out of government. It is the whole way that Washington operates that needs to be reexamined, and this goes far beyond the problems of a single program or industry. Both agencies will continue to share environmental measurements made by the system and support the operations of a shared common ground system.

The Administration decision for the restructured Joint Polar Satellite System will continue the development of critical Earth observing instruments required for improving weather forecasts, climate monitoring, and warning lead times of severe storms.

The partner agencies are committed to maintaining collaborations towards the goal of continuity of earth observations from space. The restructured JPSS Joint Polar Satellite System is planned to provide launch readiness capability in FY and FY with launches of JPSS-1 in and JPSS-2 in , respectively in order to minimize any potential loss of continuity of data for the afternoon orbit in the event of an on orbit or launch failure of other components in the system.

Final readiness dates will not be baselined until all transition activities are completed. The following restructured concept scenario emerged in The MetOp program provides observations in the mid-morning orbit 9. Current situation Figure 4 :. NPOESS development procurement: IPO adopted a new procurement approach agreed upon by all parties and based upon a fully defined set of integrated operational requirements to meet the needs of the nation's civil and military users for environmental satellite data.

In the new approach, the design is left to the contractor. In , the NPOESS program was restructured as a result of technical problems with new sensor development, associated cost growth, and schedule delays incurred in previous years.

Data collected from imaging and atmospheric sounding instruments in this afternoon orbit are critical for global NWP models. Satellite imagery and atmospheric data from this orbit are critical to support DoD global NWP models and short-term local and regional forecasts that are used for tactical planning on the battlefield. The afternoon NPOESS spacecraft will carry advanced technology visible, infrared, and microwave imagers and sounders to deliver higher spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution data enabling more accurate short-term weather forecasts and severe storm warnings.

The NPOESS architecture is built on a foundation of affordability, and three pillars of data quality, data latency, and availability. These EDRs are generated by the system using raw data from the spaceborne sensors and spacecraft, in conjunction with science algorithms and calibration factors.

The system was designed to minimize data latency, and hence provide users with timely data. Data availability is ensured by the way data is stored throughout the system, on the spacecraft and on the ground, so that it can be retrieved and resent if the first transmittal is not successful.

System availability is a measure of how well around-the-clock operations are supported, through the careful deployment of hot spares and fault tolerance of the system. Note: The original planning had 3 spacecraft in 3 orbital planes. The space segment is designed to have ample resource margins with the ability to accommodate technology insertion, component changes and performance enhancements.

The following resource reservation requirements apply with regard to mass, power, and data rate budgets:. Northrop Grumman Corp. The C3S provides all communications with the satellites, and consists of three elements:. The Centrals are:. Considering that space environmental conditions can vary on time scales of tens of minutes, SafetyNet will allow space weather service providers to better support time-critical operations and space- based resource protection.

It consists of 15 globally distributed unmanned ground receptors designed to frequently receive stored mission data from NPOESS satellites. The unmanned ground receptors are interconnected and linked to central data processing centers in the United States by commercial fiber optic networks.

The EDRs are then used to provide timely, accurate environment products tailored to the meet the needs of the Weather Centrals' customers.

Each SafetyNet Receptor designed to store up to 24 hours of mission data. Each satellite has an average of 6. The SDRs contain the counts and calibration data at geolocated points. These data products will be available through the Centrals' IDP as retrievable data records. The Centrals' IDP will provide sufficient temporary storage capacity i. In addition to the space-to-ground transmission of SMD, NPOESS will simultaneously broadcast two continuous real-time data streams, at high and low rates, to suitably equipped field terminals worldwide.

NGST is developing the IDP software that will run on the high-end computer systems at each of the Centrals, as well as the scalable IDP software that will run on the field terminals, including commercial-off-the-shelf systems. The IPO will distribute the non-proprietary IDP field terminal software, software changes, and program updates to field terminal users worldwide. Figure 9: New direct readout roles and responsibilities image credit: IPO. Once the field terminal user receives the data, it is pre-processed to depacketize data.

The FTS provides software for fixed or mobile receivers to process regional real-time mission data broadcast from the satellite. The NPOESS program supports two operational missions, one for global environmental sensing and data product production, and one of the regional direct readout environmental sensing and data product production. The data products produced within the direct readout mission is a subset of those data products produced by the global data set.

The overall service spectrum consists of: 23 The ground-based, fixed and mobile Field Terminal FT consists of three elements:. The FTS concept provides the engineering and application software required to host the program provided data processing element DPE software source code and the Field Terminal technical specification defining the minimum required COTS Commercial-Off-The-Shelf hardware and software required for satellite direct broadcast signal processing and DPE processing.

The Field Terminal service provides a direct readout functionality to the user. LRD systems receive data in L-band at 3. Observational data as well as any ancillary data required to identify or interpret these parameters or images are generally produced by applying an appropriate set of algorithms to Raw Data Records RDR.

A feature of the NPOESS system design is the ability to selectively enable data access to pre-approved field terminal users. The DPE Data Processor Element is the central component of the Field Terminal and is the entity that ingests mission data, ancillary data derived from outside the system, auxiliary data generated within the system in order to produce NPOESS data products.

Calibration corrections and geolocation is performed to produce sensor data records equivalent to NASA level-1b products. These data products along with associated metadata are delivered to the User in an HDF-5 formatted file. The user has the ability, via the Data Delivery subscription service, to request products as a standing request.

The spacecraft size and payload capacity will be similar to the current POES series. The spacecraft design requirements call for a 15 year design life 5 years in storage, 3 years of intermittent pre-launch operation, and 7 years of on-orbit design life performance. Requirements call also for up to 21 days of autonomous operation capability with a goal of 60 days. The structure is designed for LEO weather and environmental missions and employs a highly stable optical bench for hosting of payloads.

Evolving to a standard data bus approach allows both the spacecraft and payloads to design to a single, well-established interface with low risk, similar to the approach employed by computer manufacturers and hardware peripherals. Also employed are an X-band broadcast link for large fixed users and an L-band link for smaller mobile field terminals globally. Orbit: The NPOESS satellites will be developed into three orbital planes , , and hour equatorial ascending nodal crossing times.

Each orbit plane contains a unique set of sensor complements regarding the critical sensors only : 28 The MIS instrument will fly on NPOESS C2-C4 missions to perform key measurements including soil moisture and sea surface winds, as well as other environmental parameters including atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles, and integrated atmospheric moisture and precipitation. VIIRS is a multispectral band opto-mechanical radiometer, employing a cross-track rotating telescope fore-optics design operating on the whiskbroom scanner principle , to cover a wide swath.

This arrangement provides a parallel coverage of The wide along-track coverage permits sufficient integration time for all cells in each scan sweep. One cross-track scan period of RTA is 1. The radiometric bands provide a resolution about twice in size to the imagery bands.

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