Operational Implementation of Algorithm Changes using the Algorithm Development Library

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). The Joint Polar Satellite System will replace the afternoon orbit component and ground processing system of the current Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Joint Polar Satellite System 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 the Joint Polar Satellite System is known as the Common Ground System (JPSS CGS), and provides command, control, and communications (C3) and data processing and product delivery. As a multi-mission system, CGS provides combinations of C3, data processing, and product delivery for numerous NASA, NOAA, Department of Defense (DoD), and international missions, such as NASA's Earth Observation System (EOS), NOAA's current POES, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Global Change Observation Mission – Water (GCOM-W1), and DoD's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP).

The first satellite in the JPSS constellation, known as the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite, was launched on 28 October 2011, and is currently undergoing product calibration and validation activities. As products reach a beta level of maturity, they are made available to the community through NOAA's Comprehensive Large Array-data Stewardship System (CLASS). CGS's data processing capability will process the satellite data from the Joint Polar Satellite System satellites to provide environmental data products (including Sensor Data Records (SDRs) and Environmental Data Records (EDRs)) to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Department of Defense processing centers operated by the United States government. CGS is currently processing and delivering SDRs and EDRs for Suomi NPP and will continue through the lifetime of the Joint Polar Satellite System programs.

The EDRs for Suomi NPP are currently undergoing an extensive Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) campaign. As Cal/Val proceeds, changes to the science are migrating 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. Over the course of the Suomi NPP Calibration/Validation campaign, numerous participating scientists have adopted the ADL to ensure rapid transition of their updates into the operational system. Updates to CGS based on these ADL-enabled algorithm changes have already been incorporated into operations. The reduction in time and resources to perform the operationalization has been remarkable, validating the ADL concept. As 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, with emphasis on experience and efficiencies gained during actual use.