NPP --> Suomi NPP

Spacecraft n°:

US spacecraft n°:

Launch data: Designation  37849 / 11061A Launch date  28 Oct 2011 - 09:48 UT Launch site  Va, SLC-2W Launch vehicle  Delta-7920-10C Mission  Government: Meteorology Polar LEO Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  817 x 823 km Eccentricity  1,17E-04 Inclination  98.7 deg Period  101.29 min

Spacecraft data: Prime manufacturer  Ball Aerospace Platform  BCP-2000 Operator  NASA, NOAA Mass at launch  1976 kg Dry Mass   kg Basic shape   Dimension (m)   Equipment  VIIRS, CrIS, ATMS, OMPS Solar array  1deployable solar array Stabilization   Propulsion   DC power   Design lifetime  5 yrs min - still active

Description:

• NASA and the NPOESS Integrated Program Office (IPO) are developing NPP (NPOESS Preparatory Project) as the mission precursor to the NPOESS mission and to provide data continuity between the EOS Terra and Aqua missions and the NPOESS launch slated for late in the decade. NPP also provides the NPOESS IPO with risk reduction for the NPOESS program through early flight validation of critical NPOESS sensors.
• After the cancellation of NPOESS in 2010, NPP is the only element retained. It will be used as an operational meteorological satellite in the JPSS (Joint Polar Satellite System). Continues key data records that are critical for climate change science.
• The NPP space segment is comprised of six elements. The spacecraft, the five instrument/sensor payloads, and the associated ground support equipment and simulators.
• The NPP spacecraft is a member of the Ball Configurable Platform (BCP) family of spacecraft designed for cost-effective, remote sensing applications. Its proven design accommodates a wide range of payloads, including optical applications with sub-meter resolutions and synthetic aperture radar. The NPP spacecraft bus is the eighth of 11 spacecraft built by Ball Aerospace on the same BCP 2000 core architecture. In all, this architecture has more than 50 years of successful on-orbit operations. The BCP 2000 was designed to accommodate a wide variety of Earth-observing payloads that require precision pointing control, flexible high-data throughput and downlinks, and controlled re-entry. The NPP spacecraft incorporates both MIL-STD-1553 and IEEE 1394 (FireWire) data networks to support the payload suite. The spacecraft has a 7-year design life, with a five-year 5-year mission life.
• Ball Aerospace designed and built the spacecraft bus, under contract to Goddard Space Flight Center, and is responsible for integrating the instruments and for performing satellite-level testing and launch support. The bus was completed in 2005, and has since undergone extensive risk reduction testing. All five instruments have been integrated to the spacecraft.
• The five instruments manifested for flight on the NPP spacecraft trace their heritage to instruments on NASA's Terra, Aqua and Aura missions, on NOAA's Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) spacecraft, and on DOD's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP).
• The spacecraft for NPP will directly transmit stored mission sensor data to a receiving station in Svalbard, Norway, and will also provide continuous direct broadcast of real-time sensor data. The mission data will be routed on communications networks from Svalbard to the continental United States.
• The five instruments on the NPP satellite are:
  • Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS)
    22-channel passive microwave radiometer, to create global models of temperature and moisture profiles that meteorologists will enter into weather forecasting models.
  • Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS)
    Michelson interferometer, will monitor characteristics of the atmosphere, such as moisture and pressure that will be used to produce improvements in both short-and-long term weather forecasting.
  • Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS)
    OMPS, built by Ball Aerospace, incorporates an advanced nadir-viewing sensor and a highly innovative limb-viewing sensor. OMPS instrument continues Ball's history of building ozone-measuring instruments and will continue the long-term continuous data record of ozone measurements from space.
  • Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)
    VIIRS, developed by Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, has a 22-band radiometer similar to the MODIS instrument. It will collect visible and infrared views of Earth's dynamic surface processes, such as wildfires, land changes, and ice movement. VIIRS will also measure atmospheric and oceanic properties, including clouds and sea surface temperature.
  • Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES)
    3-channel radiometer measuring reflected solar radiation, emitted terrestrial radiation, and total radiation, will monitor the natural and anthropogenic effects on the Earth's total thermal radiation budget.

Mission details:

• The NPP weather satellite was launched from Vandenberg on Oct 28, 2011.
• NPP is a nested acronym standing for NPOESS Preparatory Project, where NPOESS was the National Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite System, a now-cancelled project that has been replaced by the Joint Polar Satellite System. NPP will provide interim capability between the last of the old NOAA Advanced TIROS-N polar weather satellites and the first JPSS satellite to be launched in a few years.
• The Delta 7920 launch vehicle carried six Cubesats in deployers attached to its final stage. The first P-POD deployer carried three 1U Cubesats, each 1 kg, 0.1m in size: AubieSat-1 from Auburn University, Alabama; M-Cubed (the Michigan Multipurpose Mission) from the University of Michigan; and E1PU2 (Explorer-1 Prime, Unit 2) from Montana State University, which carries one of Van Allen's Geiger tubes. The second deployer carred a 3U Cubesat, 0.1 x 0.3m, the RAX-2 Radio Aurora Explorer, an NSF-funded mission also from the University of Michigan.
  The final deployer carried two 1.5U cubesats, DICE-1 and DICE-2 from Utah State University, which will study the magnetosphere and will each deploy electric field antennas measuring 10 meters tip-to-tip.
• Launch from Space Launch Complex 2-West at Vandenberg was at 0948 UTC; Stage 2 reached a 195 x 853 km x 98.7 deg orbit at 0958 UTC. At 1040 UTC a second burn circulazed the orbit at 816 x 819 km and the NPP satellite separated at 1046 UTC. Stage 2's third burn at 1120 UTC lowered the orbit and increased inclination, to 458 x 816 km x 101.7 deg (a higher perigee than originally planned). At 1126 UTC the three 1U Cubesats were ejected, followed at 1128 UTC by RAX-2 and at 1129 UTC by the pair of DICE. A final burn at 1143 UTC lowered the Delta stage's orbit to 179 x 706 km x 107.3 deg to speed its eventual reentry. By Nov 8 NPP had adjusted its orbit to 822 x 824 km x 98.7 deg.
• Jan 2012: The NPP weather satellite has been renamed Suomi NPP after Verner Suomi (1915-1995) who was a pioneer of NASA's early weather satellites and flew the first cloud cover sensors on Vanguard 2 and Tiros 1.