The past four decades have seen a tremendous growth in the use of weather satellites for both civilian and military applications. The maturation of visible-infrared imagery from geosynchronous and polar orbits has become familiar to vast television audiences and military planners as well as a wide array of geophysical, oceanographic, and atmospheric scientists.

The NOAA civilian polar orbiting satellites began in 1960 and evolved over time to become the POES (Polar-orbiting Operational Satellite) program. The military developed and operated their own distinct military operational satellites starting in 1965 under what became the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). During the Cold War, a dual system was required out of military necessity and differences between military and civilian user community needs.

Many government studies have been conducted to assess the value of converging the two systems into a single system. Most studies recommended retaining the separate systems. A 1993 tri-agency study by DoD, NOAA, and NASA recommended that a single converged system should replace the current separate systems. With the end of the Cold War, Congressional interest in saving money, and the increased cooperation between the nation's weather services, the concept of a converged system was included as an initiative in the Vice President's National Performance Review. A Presidential Decision Directive, signed in May of 1994, directed the convergence of the polar orbiting weather satellites systems into a single national system. An Integrated Program Office (IPO) within NOAA was established in October 1994 as a result of the signing of a tri-agency Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) in May 1994. The new converged system was identified as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). The IPO is staffed with representatives of Department of Commerce, Department of Defense and NASA.

The IPO is responsible for the operational deployment of the NPOESS as early as 2007. The NPOESS will remain operational for at least ten years and provide global data for meteorological, oceanographic, and solar-geophysical users by disseminating the data to worldwide users. These data will be delivered in the form of Environmental Data Records (EDRs)in compliance with the Integrated Operational Requirements Document (IORD),which incorporates the DOC and DoD operational mission requirements.

The Request for Proposals (RFPs) were released in April 1997 for the NPOESS sensor development effort. The IPO awarded nine sensor development efforts in July 1997. Because of the technical complexity and risk involved with these five particular payload suites below, two competitive contracts per sensor (except for GPSOS) were awarded to begin sensor development and risk mitigation. These sensors include: VIIRS - Visible/Infrared Imager/ Radiometer Suite - Raytheon; CMIS - Conical Microwave Imager/Sounder - Ball Aerospace and Boeing; CrIS - Cross-track Infrared Sounder - ITT; OMPS - Ozone Mapper/Profiler Suite - Ball Aerospace; GPSOS - Global Positioning System Occultation Sensor - Saab -Ericsson.

The presentation will focus on an overview of the predicted performance of each of the NPOESS sensors and highlight the performance improvements from heritage sensors.