Three
Two
Main engine start.
One
Zero and lift off of the Delta 2 with the NPP satellite blazing the way at new technology
for climate research and weather forecasting.
NASA successfully launched the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental
Satellite System Preparatory Project. or NPP. on Oct. 28. 2011.
The spacecraft was lifted into orbit by a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket launching
from Vandenberg Air Force Base. California at 2:48 am pacific time.
capping a flawless countdown.
NPP is a technological trailblazer in the effort to find out more about the weather and
condition of our world. It is the first designed to collect critical data to improve short-term
weather forecasts and increase understanding of long-term climate change.
Jim Gleason. Project Scientist. NPP: "NPP is a continuation of the existing earth orbiting satellites
for weather prediction and for climate monitoring purposes you need to have
continuous observations.
So what NPP does is continue the data record started by the NASA EOS satellites and
improves on the instruments that are used for numerical weather forecasting from the
current series of NOAA satellites."
While some spacecraft are built to collect a specific set of information using only one
instrument. the NPP will use five instruments to observe the Earth. Previous missions.
some still in operation. have compiled decades of data about interactions of the Earth's
myriad environmental systems. NPP aims to continue those observations with new
levels of precision.
Tim Dunn. Launch Director. NPP: "The current satellites we have on orbit have been
very successful for us. but NPP is taking all the advances we've had in technology over
the past five. 10 years. putting them on this test bed spacecraft. being able to use them.
prove them out for the future constellation."
Nearly three months after launch. on January 24th. 2012. NASA renamed the satellite in
honor of the late Verner Suomi. a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin who is
recognized widely as "the father of satellite meteorology."