NPOESS, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, represents the U.S., next generation, polar-orbiting, Low-Earth-Orbit [LEO] satellite constellation and end-to-end system for environmental remote sensing. NPOESS represents a major portion of the LEO component of a “Future National Operational Environmental Satellite System” which could be envisioned as a significant contributing component moving towards a Global Earth Observation System of Systems [GEOSS].

The NPOESS Session will be comprised of four Sections:

1. An NPOESS Overview: The Next Generation National Polar-orbiting Environmental Satellite System “Preparing the Way for NPOESS: Program Overview, System Architecture and Status”

2. The NPOESS Mission is to provide an operational remote sensing capability on global and regional scales for the Meteorological, Climatic, Terrestrial, Oceanographic and Solar-Geophysical mission areas. A short series of presentations highlights three of the “Missions within the NPOESS Mission”, namely,

a. The Meteorological Mission b. The Climate Mission c. The Ocean Mission

3. A panel of presenters to describe the NPOESS Mission Capabilities with respect to the Sensors/Algorithms/Products for several of the major sensors that will be onboard the NPOESS Preparatory Project and the NPOESS constellation satellites, including:

a. VIIRS – Visible and Infrared Imager and Radiometer Suite b. CrIS – Cross-track Infrared Sounder c. OMPS – Ozone Mapper and Profiler Suite d. ATMS – Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder e. CMIS – Conical-scanning Microwave Imager and Sounder

4. Two of the major NPOESS Risk Reduction Missions including their role, their scope, and their potential and realized results:

a. NPOESS Preparatory Project [NPP] b. WindSat/Coriolis