NPP Packed & Ready!

On Monday, August 8, 2011, NOAA and NASA gathered in Boulder, CO and celebrated the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission as it gets ready to leave the Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation facility in Boulder to journey to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California where it is scheduled for launch on October 25.

NPP is the next generation polar-orbiting satellite that will act as the bridge between NOAA's current satellites and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), expected to launch in 2017. NPP will provide information such as atmospheric profiles of temperature, moisture, and pressure for weather forecasting, sea surface temperature, ocean color, and vegetation indices for drought monitoring and forecasting. In addition, NPP will provide high quality climate observations. For more on NPP, click here.

Pictured here are Mary Kicza, Assistant Administrator for NOAA's Satellite and Information Service, who spoke about the importance of the NPP mission to the continuity of polar-orbiting operational satellites, and Jack Hayes, Assistant Administrator for NOAA's National Weather Service, who spoke about the criticality of the data to accurate and reliable weather forecasting.

Congratulations to Ball Aerospace, the instrument and subcontractors, and the NOAA and NASA teams on this milestone. Keep up the great work and we'll see you in October for the launch!