With the launch of NPP currently planned for October, 2011, the first in a new series of U.S. satellites will be coming online. In 2015, this will be followed by another new series, GOES-R. SeaSpace Corporation has been making plans for the launch of NPP for over a year. These preparations included becoming an NOAA-approved user of VIIRS proxy data. With this data, SeaSpace was able to develop and test a VIIRS ingestion scheme into TeraScan®, in anticipation of launch. TeraScan® is SeaSpace's proprietary software for acquisition, processing, and visualization of direct broadcast satellites. For level 1 and 2 products, SeaSpace will integrate the International Polar Orbiter Processing Package (IPOPP) from NASA, and IMAPP from the University of Wisconsin into TeraScan®. SeaSpace also is currently performing hardware upgrades for many customers with X-band ground stations to facilitate their ability to receive data directly from NPP.

This presentation will cover the preparations that SeaSpace undertook to ready itself, and the members of the direct broadcast community that are SeaSpace Customers, for direct reception and processing of NPP VIIRS data. Additionally, post-launch processing results will be shared, along with lessons-learned, to apply to the readiness planning of future direct broadcast satellites such as GOES-R.