HR: 13:40h
AN: B43E-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System:Capabilities for Operational Land Remote Sensing
AU: * Hoffman, C W
EM: carl.hoffman@noaa.gov
AF: NPOESS Integrated Office, 8455 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910
AU: Schneider, S
EM: stanley.schneider@noaa.gov
AF: NPOESS Integrated Office, 8455 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910
AU: Murphy, R
EM: Robert.Murphy@noaa.gov
AF: NPOESS Integrated Office, 8455 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD 20910
AB: Over the last decade, the tri-agency Integrated Program Office (IPO), comprised of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has been managing the development of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). Once operational later this decade, NPOESS will replace NOAA's Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) and DoD's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) systems. The IPO, through its Acquisition and Operations contractor, Northrop Grumman, will launch NPOESS spacecraft into three orbital planes to provide a single, national system capable of satisfying both civil and national security requirements for space-based, remotely sensed environmental data. With the development of NPOESS, we are evolving the existing "weather" satellites into integrated environmental observing systems by expanding our capabilities to observe, assess, and predict the total Earth system - ocean, atmosphere, land, and the space environment. NPOESS will transform today's short-term, space-based ocean research missions into a sustained, operational ocean remote sensing observation program. Land measurements comprise seven of the fifty-five user-validated requirements for geophysical measurements that will be made by NPOESS sensors. In 1997, the IPO initiated a robust sensor risk reduction effort for early development of the critical sensor suites and algorithms necessary to support NPOESS. In 2001, preliminary design efforts were completed for the last of five critical imaging/sounding instruments for NPOESS. Land requirements have directly and substantially "driven" the design of two NPOESS sensors: the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and the Conical-scanning Microwave Imager/Sounder (CMIS). Compared to the predecessor operational systems, NPOESS will deliver higher resolution (spatial and temporal) and equivalent (or more) accurate measurements of surface albedo, vegetative index, imagery , land surface temperature (LST), snow cover/snow depth, surface type, and soil moisture. Early flight-testing of instruments will reduce development risk and demonstrate and validate global imaging and sounding instruments, algorithms, and pre-operational ground systems prior to the first NPOESS flight. Four NPOESS sensors are scheduled to fly on the joint NASA/IPO NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission in 2008. NPP will demonstrate the utility of improved imaging and radiometric data for terrestrial applications, such vegetation mapping, landcover change, and fire detection. NPP and NPOESS will help ensure continuity and extension of climate-quality measurements between NASA's Earth Observing System Terra and Aqua research missions and NPOESS.
UR: http://www.ipo.noaa.gov
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005