Managed and Supported Missions in the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Common Ground System (CGS)

Abstract:

NOAA & NASA are acquiring the next-generation civilian operational weather satellite: Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Replacing the p.m. orbit & ground system (GS) of POES satellites, JPSS sensors will collect weather, ocean & climate data. JPSS’s Common Ground System (CGS), made up of C3 & IDP parts and developed by Raytheon, now flies the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite, transfers data between ground facilities, processes them into Environmental Data Records for NOAA’s weather centers and evolves to support JPSS-1 in 2017. CGS processed S-NPP data creates many TBs/day across >2 dozen environmental data products (EDPs), doubling after JPSS launch. But CGS goes beyond this by providing data routing to other missions: GCOM-W1, Coriolis/Windsat, EOS, NSF’s McMurdo Station, Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, and POES & MetOp satellites. Each system orbits 14 times/day, downlinking data 1-2 times/orbit at up to 100s of MBs/sec, to support the creation of 10s of TBs of data/day across 100s of EDPs. CGS’s flexible, multimission capabilities offer major chances for cost reduction & improved information integration across the missions. CGS gives a vital flexible-expandable-virtualized modern GS architecture. Using 5 global ground stations to receive S-NPP & JPSS-1 data, CGS links with high-bandwidth commercial fiber to rapidly move data to the IDP for EDP creation & delivery and leverages these networks to provide added support to more missions. CGS data latency will be < 80 minutes. JPSS CGS is a mature, tested solution for support to operational weather forecasting for civil, military and international partners and climate research. It features a flexible design handling order-of-magnitude increases in data over legacy systems and meets tough science accuracy needs. The Raytheon-built CGS gives the full GS capability, from design & development through operations & sustainment, facilitating future evolution to support more missions.