The National Environment Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) develops, operates, and maintains the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) operational environmental satellite programs. NESDIS has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), and France's Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) on a joint effort named Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM). The objective of this mission is to measure sea surface height by using a radar altimeter mounted on polar-orbiting satellites. It provides precise sea surface heights for determining global sea-level rise, ocean currents, and upper ocean heat contents. OSTM started with the Jason-2 satellite, and observations continue with the launch of the Jason-3 satellite.. The Jason-3 satellite will carry instruments similar to Jason-2 as its baseline payload and will fly in the same orbit as Jason-2. The primary mission objective is to continue the same measurements as Jason-2 with equal or better performance. The Jason-3 satellite is currently planned to be launched in mid 2014. The NOAA/NESDIS Office of Systems Development (OSD) plans to redesign the existing Jason-2 Ground system and provide new capability to command and control the Jason-3 satellite in addition to Jason-2. The NOAA Jason Ground System (NJGS) is a consolidated next-generation ground system that will support the simultaneous operation of the Jason-2 and Jason-3 ocean surface topography missions. NJGS will consist of several independent elements for spacecraft command and control, telemetry processing, and data archiving and distribution. The ground system processing elements are located at the Satellite Operations Control Center (SOCC), the Environmental Satellite Data Processing Center (ESPC), and the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) with its Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System (CLASS) capabilities. The downlink and uplink stations Command and Data Acquisition Stations (CDAS) are located in Wallops, Virginia and Fairbanks, Alaska. The NJGS is also supported by a Data Communications Network (DCN) comprised of securely linked and firewall-protected networks between NJGS components and ground system components at EUMETSAT, CNES, and NASA/JPL.. The DCN communicates commands, telemetry, and data products among the 4-Partners. The planned architecture will significantly reduce ground system life-cycle costs, improve future standardization between component systems with an enterprise approach, standardize operation and maintenance of operational ground equipment, provide reliable operation with hot backup and fault-tolerant component systems, provide significant IT security enhancements, and the ability to perform system hardware and software upgrades without incurring long system downtimes. This paper describes the design and development of various subsystems of NJGS. It describes the hardware and software architecture used to support mission critical applications.