Weather Satellite Enterprise Information Chain

INTRODUCTION

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, land surface and climatological observations of the earth and the atmosphere. 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. The CGS is developed and sustained by Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services (IIS). It consists of two primary parts: (1) the Command, Control and Communications Segment (C3S), and (2) the Interface Data Processing Segment (IDPS). The C3S currently flies the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite and transfers mission data from S-NPP and between the ground facilities. The IDPS then processes Suomi NPP satellite data to provide Environmental Data Records (EDRs) to NOAA processing centers. As of May 2014, S-NPP replaced the last POES satellite as NOAA's primary operational polar-orbiting mission in the early afternoon orbit. When the JPSS-1 satellite is launched in early 2017, the responsibilities of the CGS will be expanded to support both Suomi NPP and JPSS-1. 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).

INFORMATION FLOW AND PROCESSING

Developed and maintained by Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services (IIS), the CGS is a multi-mission enterprise system serving NOAA, NASA and their national and international partners. The CGS provides a wide range of support to a number of missions:

• Command and control and mission management for the Suomi National Polar Partnership (S-NPP) mission today, expanding this support to the JPSS-1 satellite and the Polar Free Flyer-1 mission in 2017

• Data acquisition via a Polar Receptor Network (PRN) for S-NPP, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Global Change Observation Mission – Water (GCOM-W1), POES, and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) and Coriolis/WindSat for the Department of Defense (DoD

• Data routing over a global fiber Wide Area Network (WAN) for S-NPP, JPSS-1, GCOM-W1, POES, DMSP, Coriolis/WindSat, the NASA Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN, which includes several Earth Observing System [EOS] and LandSat missions), MetOp for the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), and the National Science Foundation's (NSF) McMurdo Station in Antarctica

• Environmental data processing and distribution for S-NPP, GCOM-W1 and JPSS-1

The CGS plays a key role in facilitating the movement and value-added enhancement of data all the way from satellite-based sensor data to delivery to the consumers who generate forecasts and produce watches and warnings. This presentation will discuss the information flow from sensors, through data routing and processing, and finally to product delivery. It will highlight how advances in architecture developed through lessons learned from S-NPP and implemented for JPSS-1 will increase data availability and reduce latency for end user applications, including the Global Forecast Models (GFS, NAVGEM, ECMWF) [NWS, DoD, International], Cloud Cover Analysis [USAF], Tropical Storm [NWS, USN, USCG], Soil Moisture [US Army, USDA], Ice Data [USCG, USN], and various unique missions, such as Forest Fire management and Post-Event Power Outage Assessments.

REFERENCES

[1] K. Grant, S. Miller, M. Jamilkowski; “Assured Weather Satellite Information Delivery,” European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) 2015 Satellite Conference; Toulouse, France; September 2015.

[2] K. Grant, S. Miller, M. Jamilkowski; “Assured Weather Satellite Information Delivery,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 2015 Satellite Conference; Greenbelt, MD; April-May 2015.

[3] K. Grant, S. Miller, M. Jamilkowski; “Assured Weather Satellite Information Delivery,” American Meteorological Society 2015 Annual Meeting; Phoenix, AZ; Jan 2015.

[4] K. Grant, S. Miller, M. Jamilkowski and S. Cochran; “Photons to Decisions – the JPSS CGS Value Chain,” IEEE/International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS); Quebec City, Canada; July 2014.