The Creation of NPP:

In 1994, President Clinton directed the convergence of the very long and successful Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) program and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DSMP). The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) is the result of that convergence, and the Integrated Program Office (IPO) was hatched soon thereafter to administer and manage the new program, which, at the time, only included NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the Air Force Weather Administration (AFWA). Because the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) goals for EOS 2 and 3 were eliminated by budget cuts, NASA belatedly joined NPOESS as a means of preservation. NASA expressed the need for bridging from the Earth Observing System's (EOS) Terra and Aqua missions to NPOESS, and IPO expressed the need for reducing the risk of putting new, untested sensors in space for vital weather and military needs, so the partnership made sense. This led to the hatching of the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP).

The three agencies each have representatives on the Joint Agency Requirements Group (JARG) and Senior User's Advisory Group (SUAG); they also consult with the National Academy of Sciences on programmatic and national needs. JARG and SUAG define the products and specifications and the rough types of instruments. This information is in the Technical Requirements Document (TRD) for the entire NPOESS and NPP, and the Sensor Requirements Document (SRD) for the individual sensors. Interested industry partners propose specific designs, and through competitive down-selection, one company is chosen to build. A key issue here is that cost is an independent variable in the design, i.e. trades based on performance/risk vs. cost must be made by the interested industry partners.

Once a company/design is chosen by the IPO, the company's proposed design and specification replaces the relevant SRD. Similarly, once the Shared System Performance Contractor (SSPR) is chosen, roughly in August, that company will:

1) subcontract to each of the sensor contractors for procurement of the sensor and algorithms.
2) replace the TRD with its proposal specifications.

The SSPR will be in charge of everything, including procuring materials, building the s/c, launching it into orbit, operating it in orbit, and generating products. NASA will separately be in charge of generating Climate Data Records, which the NPP Science Team will select through competitive review processes. A fourth instrument will likely be added to the payload and is being called the "Instrument of Opportunity," however which specific instrument it will be is still undecided.