The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP): leading the change for NPOESS

The NPP is a joint-agency mission intending to serve the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Integrated Program Office (IPO) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and their user communities. The NPP provides the earth science community with data continuity for systematic measurements in the disciplines of terrestrial and oceanic productivity, and atmospheric temperature and humidity profiles. The NPP also provides the IPO and its users a risk reduction demonstration of capabilities for critical NPOESS instruments, their associated algorithms, and NPOESS command, control, communications, and interface data processing systems, prior to the first NPOESS launch, thereby allowing lessons learned from NPP to be incorporated in to NPOESS.