National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System

Artist's impression of a planned NPOESS satellite in space

The National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System ( NPOESS , German about national, polar orbiting operated, environmental satellite system ) is a failed US space project. It planned to set up a constellation of environmental satellites starting with the launch of the “C1” or “Charlie 1” satellite in 2013 . The satellites were supposed to monitor the weather, the earth's atmosphere , the oceans and the land areas .

planning

NPOESS should be operated by the Office of Satellite and Product Operation (OSPO) of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility (NSOF) in Suitland . On the one hand, it was intended to replace the DMSP satellites of the US Department of Defense and the POES satellites of NOAA. The NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) was carried out as a prototype mission and launched five years after the originally planned launch on October 28, 2011.

Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems (NGAS) was the primary systems integrator for the NPOESS project. Raytheon , Ball Aerospace & Technologies, and Boeing developed the sensors; this resulted in delays and cost overruns. As a result, the White House announced on February 1, 2010 that the NPOESS partnership would be dissolved and that two satellite series would be launched in polar orbits for military and civil purposes:

• The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) is being set up for the civilian purposes of NOAA and NASA . A first satellite - JPSS-1 - was launched on November 18, 2017.

• The new military system is called the Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS).

Web links

• NOAA: What is NPOESS? ( Memento from October 15, 2011 in the web archive archive.today )
• NOAA NESDIS: POES satellites ( memento from September 21, 2014 in the web archive archive.today )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ JPSS satellite delays risk loss of global climate data continuity. Climate Science Watch, July 10, 2012, accessed November 27, 2013 . 
2. ↑ Suomi NPP Mission Overview. NASA, accessed November 27, 2013 . 
3. ↑ White House Dissolves NPOESS Satellite Partnership ( Memento from September 12, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
4. ↑ NOAA: JPSS-1 Has a New Name: NOAA-20
5. ^ Outlines of Pentagon Weather Satellite Plan Starting To Emerge. SpaceNews, June 30, 2010, accessed January 14, 2015 .