Algorithm Development Library for Environmental Satellite Missions

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are jointly acquiring the next-generation civilian weather and environmental satellite system: the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). JPSS will contribute the afternoon orbit component and ground processing system of the restructured National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). As such, the Joint Polar Satellite System replaces the current Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the ground processing component of both Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) replacement, previously known as the Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS), managed by the Department of Defense (DoD). The 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 processing system for JPSS is known as the JPSS Common Ground System (JPSS CGS), and consists of a Command, Control, and Communications Segment (C3S) and an Interface Data Processing Segment (IDPS). Both segments are developed by Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems (IIS). The C3S currently flies the Suomi National Polar Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite and transfers mission data from Suomi NPP and between the ground facilities. The IDPS processes Suomi NPP satellite data to provide Environmental Data Records (EDRs) to NOAA and DoD processing centers operated by the United States government. When the JPSS-1 satellite is launched in early 2017, the responsibilities of the C3S and the IDPS will be expanded to support both Suomi NPP and JPSS-1. The EDRs for Suomi NPP are currently undergoing an extensive Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) campaign. As Cal/Val proceeds, changes to the science will need to migrate into the operational system. In addition, as new techniques are found to improve, supplement, or replace existing products, these changes will also require implementation into the operational system. In the past, operationalizing science algorithms and integrating them into active systems often required months of work. In order to significantly shorten the time and effort required for this activity, Raytheon has developed the Algorithm Development Library (ADL). The ADL enables scientist and researchers to develop algorithms on their own platforms, and provide these to Raytheon in a form that can be rapidly integrated directly into the operational baseline. As the JPSS CGS is a multi-mission ground system, algorithms are not restricted to Suomi NPP or JPSS missions. The ADL provides a development environment that any environmental remote sensing mission scientist can use to create algorithms that will plug into a JPSS CGS instantiation. This paper describes the ADL and how scientists and researchers can use it in their own environments.