National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS)

Abstract

Presidential Decision Directive/National Science and Technology Council-2 (PDD/NCTC-2) (May 1994) directed the DoD, Department of Commerce (DOC), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to establish a converged national polar-orbiting weather satellite program. The converged program, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), combined the follow-on to DoD's Defense Meteorological Satellite System (DMSP) and the DOC's Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) program. On 1 February 2010, the Executive Office of the President announced a restructure of the NPOESS program which directed the acquisition and development of separate military and civil weather satellite programs. The Air Force began acquisition of the Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS) to satisfy military weather requirements. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will acquire the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) and a shared common ground system to address civil weather and environmental requirements. The DWSS system was designed to produce environmental data records for regional/global meteorological, oceanographic, environmental, climatic data, and space environmental remote sensing information. DWSS capabilities would enable the anticipation and exploitation of atmospheric and space environment conditions for military operations planning. DWSS data would also be instrumental to civilian weather forecasters as they work to improve climate forecasting and severe weather modeling and prediction, reducing the potential for loss of civilian life and property. The DWSS program was designed to satisfy DoD's environmental monitoring requirements in the early morning orbit by developing and launching two satellites [flight-1 (F1) and flight-2 (F2)], each with an electro-optical sensor, Space Environment Monitor (SEM-N), and a microwave sensor, with a planned initial launch capability no earlier than 2018. RDT&E funds in FY 2012 were used to support DWSS program termination activities such as: leveraging and/or transitioning government investments in the NPOESS/DWSS program including electro-optical, microwave, and space weather sensors, spacecraft, materials, algorithms and other DoD-specific elements of the common ground system; acquiring if necessary, any intellectual property rights and data; storage of program assets for potential future use; and covering any contractor or government liabilities incurred while performing termination activities. BA-4 - This program is a Budget Activity 4, Advanced Component Development and Prototypes (ACP&P) because efforts are necessary to evaluate integrated technologies, representative modes or prototype systems in a high fidelity and realistic operating environment.

Document Details

• Document Type: R2 Budgetary Justification
• Publication Date: Oct 01, 2014
• Source ID: 0305178F_4_3600_PB_2014
• Service Agency Name: Air Force

Entities

Organizations

• United States Air Force

Tags

Communities of Interest

• Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

• Acquisition
• Air Force
• Artificial Satellites
• Cost Analysis
• Costs
• Detectors
• Electro-Optical Sensors
• Engineering
• Environment
• Environmental Monitoring
• Intellectual Property
• Meteorological Satellites
• Military Operations
• Optical Detectors
• Product Development
• Space Environments
• Test And Evaluation

Fields of Study

• Environmental science

Readers

• Atmospheric Science/Meteorology
• Enterprise Information Systems Architecture and Joint Command Capability Interoperability Support.
• Government and Public Administration Law.

Technology Areas

• Space
• Space - Satellites