NOAA’s Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) Overview

Tom SchottNESDIS/OSD Satellite Product ManagerU.S. Department of Commerce - NOAA

NOAA Satellite ConferenceApril 8-12, 2013

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Topics• Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental

Satellite (POES)• Initial Joint Polar-orbiting System (IJPS)

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POES Mission• To provided uninterrupted flow of global environmental

information in support of operational requirements for:– Global Soundings – Global Imagery– Global and Regional Surface & Hydrological Obs– Direct Readout, Data Collection, Search and Rescue– Space Environment and Ozone Observations

• To establish long-term continuous data sets for climate monitoring and change predictions

• Uninterrupted data requires two satellites for continuous coverage placed in orbits selected to optimize support for both weather services and climate requirements.

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12 Z Orbit Coverage0900Z –1500Z

Afternoon POES Orbit

Mid-morning MetOp Orbit

10am Noon 2pm

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00 Z Orbit Coverage2100Z – 0300Z

Afternoon POES Orbits

Mid-morning MetOp Orbits

10pm Midnight 2am

POES CORE MISSION REQUIREMENTS & SENSORSInstrument POES

Science Observations

Imagery

Vis/IR Imager AVHRR

Sea Surface Temp.

Vegetation

Snow/Ice Cover

Aerosols

Radiation Budget

Radiances

IR and Microwave sounders

HIRS

Temp. Profiles AMSU-A

Hum. ProfilesMHS

Hydrology Products

Total Ozone and Profiles UV Backscatter Sensor SBUV

Space Weather Space Environment Monitor SEM

ServicesDirect Readout HRPT

Data Collection A-DCS

Search & Rescue SARR/SARP

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Major Customers• Numerical Weather Prediction Centers• NWS National Centers for Environmental Prediction • National Weather Service Field Offices• NOAA Ocean Service and NOAA Marine Fisheries• Hazard community (Volcanic Ash Centers, US Forest Service)• Other U.S. Federal Agencies• International community • Global climate community• Direct Readout Users

– High-resolution Picture Transmission (HRPT) Users– Automatic Picture Transmission (APT) Users– Search and Rescue– Data Collection System

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International Partners• European Organization for the Exploitation of

Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)– MetOp Satellites

• Canada – Department of National Defense (DND)– Search and Rescue Repeater (SARR)

• France – Center National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES)– Search and Rescue Processor (SARP)– Data Collection (DCS & A-DCS)

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POES Status (Apr 2, 2013) http://www.oso.noaa.gov/poesstatus/index.asp

Operational G

Spacecraft Issue but no User Impact S/C

Operational with Limitation Y

Non-Operational R

Not Applicable N/A

Spacecraft Subsystems METOP-A NOAA-19 NOAA-18 NOAA-17 NOAA-16 NOAA-15Launch Date Oct 2006 Feb 2009 May 2005 Jun 2002 Sep 2000 May 1998

Operational Date May 2007 Jun 2009 Aug 2005 Oct 2002 Mar 2001 Dec 1998

Mission Data Category Primary (AM) Primary (PM) Secondary (PM) Secondary (AM) Secondary (PM) Secondary (AM)

Payload Instruments

AVHRR G G G R (11) Y(13) Y(20)

HIRS G G Y (3) Y (28) Y(14) R (6)

AMSU-A1 Y(26) G G R (4) Y(15) Y(21)

AMSU-A2 G G G G G

AMSU-B N/A N/A N/A Y (9) G R (12)

MHS G Y (8) G N/A N/A N/A

SEM G G G G G G

SBUV N/A S/C (9) R (29) G Y(16) N/A

Spacecraft Subsystems

Telemetry, Command & Control G G G G G G

ADACS G G Y (7) Y (27) Y(17) Y(10)

EPS G G G Y(25) G G

Thermal Control G G G G G Y(22)

Communications Y (1) G G S/C (5) Y(30) Y(23)

APT/LRPT R (2) G G G R(18) G

DCS N/A N/A G G G G

ADCS G G N/A N/A N/A N/A

SAR G G G G Y(19) Y(24)

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NOAA-17 Decommissioning• After nearly 11 years of

service NOAA-17 will be decommissioned on April 10, 2013

• Decision based on evaluation of NOAA-17’s health, ability to provide meaningful data to the scientific and weather community, and resource demands in NESDIS/OSPO

• Since launch, the electrical power subsystem has degraded extensively, and AVHRR and AMSU-A1 instruments are no longer functional

• Metop-A and B will replace NOAA-17’s data coverage

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NOAA-17 (NOAA-M) was launched on June 24, 2002

Initial Joint Polar-orbiting System (IJPS)

• IJPS consists of two independent, but fully coordinated, polar satellite systems to provide for the continuous and timely collection and exchange of environmental data from space.

• Afternoon orbit provided by NOAA – NOAA-18 launched May 2005– NOAA-19 launched Feb 2009

• Mid morning orbit provided by EUMETSAT– MetOp A launched Oct 2006– MetOp B launched Sep 2012– MetOp C planning launch date 2017

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IJPS era began

IJPS Shared Partnering

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• 1400 Orbit -Ascending Node• Direct broadcast with existing

HRPT and analog APT links• Contingency Support• Data Exchange• Instruments

– NOAA Provided• AVHRR/3• HIRS/4• AMSU-A• SEM• SARSAT

– EUMETSAT Provided• MHS

– Argos (Data Collection Sys)– NOAA Unique

• SBUV/2

• 0930 Orbit - Descending Node• Direct broadcast with A-HRPT• Contingency Support• Data Exchange• Instruments

– NOAA Provided• AVHRR/3• HIRS/4 (not on MetOp C)• AMSU-A• SEM• SARSAT

– EUMETSAT Provided• MHS

– Argos (Data Collection Sys)– EUMETSAT Unique

• IASI• ASCAT• GOME-2• GRAS

NOAA 18 & 19 MetOp A, B & C

EUMETSAT MetOp-B Status• Launched on September 17, 2012 (50 minutes behind

MetOp-A) • All instruments have passed cal/val and level 1b data are

available through direct readout• NESDIS/OSPO/SPSD developing level 2 products from

NOAA supplied instruments– Microwave Integrated Retrieval System (MIRS) Products

• April 8, 2013 at 1430 UTC – Advanced TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (ATOVS) Products

• April 11, 2013 at 1430 UTC (rescheduled from April 1, 2013)

• Scheduled for operations ~April 24, 2013• MetOp-B will be new primary AM satellite

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Initial Joint Polar-orbiting System (IJPS)

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Svalbard, Norway

Suitland, MD and Camp Springs, MD

Wallops Is, VA

9:30 A.M.

PolarOrbits

Fairbanks, AK

2:00 P.M.

Sun-SynchronousIncl. 98.7/98.9Period 101 min.Apogee 530/518 miles

Scan width 2700 kmCircle Earth 14 timesper day

Darmstadt,Germany

MetOp

NOAA

McMurdo

Low Data Rate Direct Readout Users

• NOAA Automatic Picture Transmission (APT)– Analog signal– 2 imagery channels at 4km– Frequency changed for

NOAA-18 & 19 -- reduce interference• 137.1 and 137.9125 MHz

– NOAA 15 still active

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Composite image courtesy of New Beith Weather Stationhttp://www.newbeithweather.com/wxtoimg.php

High Data Rate Direct Readout Users• NOAA High-resolution

Picture Transmission (HRPT)– Realtime data at 667kbs rate– NOAA-18/19 active

• MetOp Advanced High-resolution Picture Transmission (A-HRPT)– Realtime data at 3.5mbs rate– Flown on MetOp morning

orbits – All instrument data including

European sensors (IASI, ASCAT, etc.)

– Can be encrypted

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24/7 Help Desk ESPCOperations@noaa.gov

User Services SPSD.UserServices@noaa.gov

Data Access NESDIS.Data.Access@noaa.gov

Webmaster SSDWebmaster@noaa.gov

Web www.ospo.noaa.gov

www.facebook.com/NOAANESDIS

www.twitter.com/noaasatellites

Satellite Operations Contact Information

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Summary• NOAA continues to partner with EUMETSAT in

the mid-morning polar orbit• NOAA-19 is the last of the POES satellites for the

afternoon polar orbit– POES satellites have served the nation since the early

1960s• Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) ensures

afternoon polar orbit capabilities continue

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