The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environment Satellite System capabilities for operational ocean remote sensing

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, NPOESS will replace NOAA's Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) and DoD's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) systems. Ocean measurements comprise one-fourth of the 55 user-validated requirements for geophysical measurements that will be made by NPOESS sensors. Ocean requirements have directly and substantially "driven" the design and acquisition strategy for three NPOESS sensors: the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS); the Conical-scanning Microwave Imager/Sounder (CMIS); and the Altimeter. With these instruments, NPOESS will deliver higher resolution (spatial and temporal) and more accurate measurements of sea surface temperature (SST), ocean surface wind vectors/stress, ocean color and derived parameters, sea ice (edge motion, age, surface temperature, thickness), oceanic heat flux, significant wave height, and sea surface topography. NPOESS spacecraft will be launched into three orbital planes beginning later this decade to provide significantly improved operational capabilities and benefits to satisfy the critical civil and national security requirements for space-based, remotely sensed environmental data. NPOESS will transform today's relatively short-term, space-based ocean research missions into a sustained, operational ocean remote sensing observation program.