NOAA, INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANISATION ANNOUNCE PLANS FOR NEW STATION TO RECEIVE NPOESS DATA

Dec. 18, 2006 — NOAA officials have announced plans to locate a satellite receiving station in India that will capture data from the future National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS. NOAA and officials from the Indian Space Research Organisation said the National Remote Sensing Agency in Hyderabad, India, will host the SafetyNet™ receiving station. (Click NOAA image for larger view of artist’s rendering of NPOESS satellite. Please credit “NOAA.”)

NPOESS will replace the existing NOAA polar-orbiting satellites and the Department of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, and provide continuous coverage of Earth's environment. The first satellite of the NPOESS program is expected to launch in 2013, although an NPOESS preparatory project satellite is planned for a 2009 launch. NPOESS spacecraft will collect and distribute Earth observation measurements to a global communications network of 15 SafetyNet ground stations, like the one planned for India.

"International partnerships are critical to the success of the NPOESS program," said Mary E. Kicza, assistant administrator for the NOAA Satellite and Information Service. "We look forward to working with ISRO on implementing this plan to provide faster access to global weather and climate data."

Under the NOAA-ISRO agreement, NRSA will supplement information India currently receives by collecting direct readout data from NOAA satellites to support terrestrial, oceanographic, meteorological and cartographic science, including disaster and coastal applications. Additionally, ISRO and NRSA would participate directly with NOAA scientists to calibrate and validate the NPOESS data.

Raytheon Company of Waltham, Mass., will provide the SafetyNet hardware, and NRSA will provide additional applications. The NOAA-ISRO agreement grew out of the India-U.S. Joint Working Group on Civil Space Cooperation in 2005 and the India-U.S. Conference on Space Science, Applications, and Commerce in 2004.

In 2007 NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, celebrates 200 years of science and service to the nation. Starting with the establishment of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. The agency is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 60 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.

Relevant Web Sites
National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS)

NOAA Satellite and Information Service

NOAA Satellites Portal

Media Contact:
John Leslie, NOAA Satellite and Information Service, (301) 713-1265