The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) have agreed to share their resources in establishing an Initial Joint Polar-orbiting Operational Satellite System (IJPS). NOAA will provide the NOAA-N and N’ afternoon orbit satellites for the space segment and will upgrade the operational Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) ground segment (PGS). EUMETSAT will be providing Metop-1 and –2, the morning orbit satellites and build their own new ground system. In support of IJPS, NOAA and EUMETSAT will build, integrate, verify, and validate their respective space and ground systems.

This paper will provide the overall perspective of the process, philosophy, and guidelines for all Verification and Validation (V&V) activities related to both ground systems. Included in this paper will be a detailed discussion of the PGS V&V tests, as well as the joint NOAA/ EUMETSAT “joint system tests”. These tests include IJPS system end-to-end (ETE) verifications to ensure functional, performance and interface compatibilities, and validate selected operational scenarios as practicable.