Customer Impacts of the Proposed Future NESDIS Satellite Architecture

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has conducted a study, the NOAA Satellite Observing System Architecture (NSOSA) study, to plan for the next generation of weather satellites. This study has been an opportunity to design a modern architecture with no pre-conceived notions regarding instruments, platforms, orbits, etc., but driven by user needs. The NSOSA study team developed and evaluated approximately 100 architecture alternatives, to include partner and commercial contributions that are likely to become available. The process of generating these architecture alternatives had to balance comprehensiveness with depth and adequately explore a complex design space. This paper describes the outcomes of the process and an exploration of the most cost-efficient constellations. The primary NOAA users of NOAA satellite data include the National Weather Service (NWS) and other NOAA line offices. The NWS relies heavily on imagery and radiance data for weather forecasting and solar imagery and space weather in situ data to determine the current and future state of space weather. These two use areas are explored for the impact of the most favorable constellations on their mission and the public value gained from the new architecture.