Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) Environmental Products

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are jointly acquiring the next-generation civilian weather and environmental satellite system: the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). JPSS will contribute the afternoon orbit component and ground processing system of the restructured National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). As such, the Joint Polar Satellite System replaces the current Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the ground processing component of both Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) replacement, previously known as the Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS), managed by the Department of Defense (DoD). The JPSS satellites will carry a suite of sensors designed to collect meteorological, oceanographic, climatological, and solar-geophysical observations of the earth, atmosphere, and space. The ground processing system for JPSS is known as the JPSS Common Ground System (JPSS CGS), and consists of a Command, Control, and Communications Segment (C3S) and an Interface Data Processing Segment (IDPS). Both segments are developed by Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems (IIS). The C3S currently flies the Suomi National Polar Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite, the first in the JPSS constellation, and transfers mission data from Suomi NPP and between the ground facilities. The IDPS processes Suomi NPP satellite data to provide Environmental Data Records (EDRs) to NOAA and DoD processing centers operated by the United States government. When the JPSS-1 satellite is launched in early 2017, the responsibilities of the C3S and the IDPS will be expanded to support both Suomi NPP and JPSS-1.

The Suomi NPP spacecraft launched on October 28, 2011 and is currently undergoing an extensive Calibration and Validation campaign. Given that public release of Suomi NPP satellite products, including EDRs, will be forthcoming over the next few months and the need for users to become familiar with these products, this paper will provide an overview of all the products generated by the Interface Data Processing Segment and provided to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System (CLASS) for public distribution. It will discuss each of the 25 Suomi NPP Environmental Data Records in detail, including a description of the Environmental Data Record, its size, coverage, and expected uses.