Success Stories
SSAI Ensures Accurate and Complete Interpretation of the VIIRS Sensor and Science Requirements
Team SSAI has been providing key support for more than a decade to the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometric Suite (VIIRS) on-board of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) missions.
Main image: Deployed JPSS-1 spacecraft with 5 key instruments, the VIIRS, CrIS, ATMS, OMPS, and CERES.
Image inlay: VIIRS instrument design introduces the next generation imagery that allows consistent high-quality and high-resolution data to users distributed all around the world.
The SSAI VIIRS team is tasked with making sure processes and requirements are consistent with customer science objectives, and also providing a comprehensive and accurate assessment of the sensor performance.
Overview
The JPSS is a new generation polar-orbiting operational environmental satellite system—the product of a fruitful collaboration between NASA and NOAA. The JPSS constellation of instruments are designed to gather global measurements of atmospheric, terrestrial, and oceanic conditions, and deliver key observations for the Nation's essential environmental products and services. On behalf of our customers, the SSAI VIIRS team has been involved in all testing phases of the VIIRS instrument; making sure processes and requirements are consistent with customer science objectives, and also providing a comprehensive and accurate assessment of the sensor performance.
Given our extensive experience with NASA Earth science data products, the SSAI VIIRS team plays a key role in the instrument’s engineering, by serving as a liaison between the sensor vendor engineering team and the NASA/NOAA science teams to ensure accurate and complete interpretation of the sensor and science requirements. Furthermore, our team is also responsible for determining how the anomalies and sensor issues are addressed and accounted for in the on-orbit calibration.
Results
The SSAI VIIRS team has successfully completed multiple milestones, including instruments performance testing and launch of two VIIRS instruments—SNPP and JPSS1/NOAA20. Work is currently in progress to launch three additional VIIRS instruments—JPSS-2, JPSS-3, and JPSS-4, in 2022, 2027, and 2032, respectively.
Both instruments that are already on-orbit have been providing high quality data in support of environmental applications, climate research, and many other societal and economical applications. Based on science community feedback, the JPSS VIIRS constellation of 5 instruments will not only ensure Earth climate data continuity but will also advance our understanding of how to best protect planet Earth and thereby improve quality of life today and into the future.