NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has granted two contracts valued at $1.7 billion, for a period of eight years to Raytheon Company on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). This program’s predecessor was the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Program.
JPSS was born when the U.S. Government modified the NPOESS and divided it into 2 portions, JPSS the civilian segment, and DWSS (Defense Weather Satellite System), a defense segment. The JPSS contains satellites and sensors that can handle next generation climate and civil weather measurements.
According to Lynn Dugle, Raytheon Intelligence and Information Systems’ President, JPSS would provide nonstop operations, to take care of both defense and civil weather requirements. It would further permit Raytheon to develop and evolve the ground system, to develop into a unique functional program for DWSS and JPSS.NASA also granted another JPSS contract to Raytheon to finish the work begun on the visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite. The JPSS common ground system contract includes designing the Command, Communication and Control Segment; system maintenance; operation and support; and the interface data processing segment.
Bill Hart, Vice President, Space systems, Raytheon, declared that all the experience gathered while crafting the premier VIIRS instrument has been of great value when the second VIIRS unit was being built.
Raytheon with a multifaceted and vast experience of 40 years has crafted and utilized ground-breaking space-based technology and products for NASA covering robotics, control systems, sensors and training programs.
Source: http://www.raytheon.com/