Future Noaa Leo Constellation: Temperature and Moisture Sounding for Nwp and Future Observations

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has begun launching its next generation of weather satellites both in polar and geostationary orbit. Over the next decade, NOAA will launch the remaining three polar satellites and two geostationary satellites. Based on the projected lifetimes of these satellites, NOAA needs to launch the next generation of weather satellites around 2030. NOAA conducted a study, titled the NOAA Satellite Observing System Architecture (NSOSA) study, to plan for the next generation of weather satellites. This study provided an opportunity to envision a modern, future architecture with no pre-conceived notions regarding instruments, platforms, orbits, etc., but driven by user needs. NOAA has begun to initiate projects to develop the new satellite constellation. This paper will provide an update on progress on the ongoing work since that time and show a possible Low Earth Orbit (LEO) pathway to achieve a subset of the overall future satellite constellation. We will focus on a discussion of approaches being considered for future low earth orbit weather satellite systems, including partial disaggregation and potential capability augmentation, and lessons learned from community engagement and Broad Agency Announcement studies. The result of this work will lead to the continuity of essential high quality environmental remote sensing data for use by the public and the meteorological and climatological communities.