The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) is presently scheduled to launch the first of five Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) in July 2001. The SSMIS is a joint United States Air Force/Navy multi-channel passive microwave sensor that combines and extends the current imaging and sounding capabilities of three separate DMSP microwave sensors, SSM/T, SSM/T-2 and SSM/I. Built by Aerojet, the SSMIS measures the earth's upwelling partially-polarized radiances in 24 channels covering a wide range of frequencies (19 - 183 GHz) in an SSM/I-type conical scan geometry (53 degree earth incidence angle), maintaining uniform spatial resolution, polarization purity and common fields-of-view for all channels across the entire swath.

The DMSP System Program Office (SPO) in conjunction with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is conducting a comprehensive end-to-end calibration/validation (Cal/Val) of the first SSMIS, to begin shortly after launch. The Naval Research Laboratory has been selected to lead the technical efforts of the Cal/Val with support and guidance from DMSP and ONR.

The SSMIS Upper Atmosphere Sounding (UAS) capabilities offer a unique opportunity to provide real-time stratospheric and mesospheric temperature observations. However, supporting measurements for the calibration and validation of the sensor and retrieved soundings are quite limited in comparison to tropospheric and lower stratospheric sounding sensors. A wide reaching combination of lidar, rocketsonde and NWP model fields will be used to calibrate the SSMIS UAS channels and retrieved temperature profiles. Plans for the utilization of these data sources and their limitations will be presented.