The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are jointly acquiring the next-generation civilian environmental satellite system: the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). JPSS will contribute the afternoon orbit component and ground system of the restructured National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). As such, JPSS will replace NOAA's current Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) and the ground processing component of both POES and the Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) replacement known as the Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS). 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 system, known as the JPSS Common Ground System (JPSS CGS), consists of six integrated product teams: Command, Control & Communications Segment (C3S); Interface Data Processing Segment (IDPS); Field Terminal Segment (FTS); Systems Engineering, Integration, & Test (SEIT); Operations & Support (O&S); and Sustainment. All segments are developed by Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems (IIS).

The IDPS will process JPSS satellite data to provide Environmental Data Records, or EDRs, to NOAA and DoD processing centers operated by the U.S. government. The IDPS will process EDRs beginning with the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) and continue through the lifetime of both JPSS and DWSS.

C3S will manage the overall JPSS and DWSS missions from control and status of the space and ground assets to ensuring delivery of timely, high quality data to IDPS for processing. C3S will also provide the globally-distributed ground assets necessary to collect and transport mission, telemetry, and command data between the satellites and the processing locations. C3S will provide all functions required for day-to-day commanding and state-of-health monitoring of NPP, JPSS and DWSS satellites, and delivery of mission data to each Central IDP for data products generation and transfer to System subscribers. C3S will also monitor and report system-wide health and status and data communications with external systems and between CGS segments. SEIT leads the overall effort, including managing, coordinating, and executing the JPSS CGS activities with NASA participation and oversight. SEIT plans and conducts all activities related to systems engineering, develops and ensures the completeness of the JPSS CGS functional and technical baselines and performs integration, deployment, testing, and verification. SEIT sponsors and supports modeling and simulation, performance analysis, and trade studies at both the segment and JPSS CGS levels, provides engineering necessary for the product segments to implement proper security controls and directly manages the integration, test, and verification of the product segments into the deliverable system. O&S operates the JPSS CGS, performs all mission operations and provides onsite support and logistics. O&S is responsible for a wide spectrum of activities ranging from developing, training, maintaining, and executing operational procedures; tracking and resolving anomalies; scheduling, measuring, trending, and tracking all Program resources; and securing all assets. O&S has operated and supported the NPP C3S and IDPS baselines since delivery in October 2008 and July 2009, respectively.

Sustainment is responsible for updating and maintaining the hardware and software baselines. It performs the sustainment of the JPSS CGS baseline at Raytheon facilities in Aurora, CO, Colorado Springs, CO, and Omaha, NE. Sustainment has updated and maintained the NPP C3S and IDPS baselines since October 2008 and July 2009, respectively.

This presentation will provide an overview of the JPSS CGS ground architecture features and enhancements for the JPSS (post-NPP) timeframe. These features and enhancements include C3S-provided space-to-ground connectivity, reliable and secure data delivery and insight and oversight of the total operations. For post-NPP, the ground segment architecture is extended to provide additional ground receptor sites to reduce data latency to users. This ground architecture is extended to provide delivery of additional sensor data products from sensors similar to NPP and additional JPSS sensors. This architecture is also extended from two Centrals {National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) and Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA)} to two additional Centrals {Fleet Numerical Meteorological and Oceanographic Center (FNMOC) and Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVO)}. While the ground segment architecture is extended and enhanced for JPSS, IDPS acts as a buffer minimizing changes in how users request and receive data products.