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A new era in atmospheric remote sensing will begin with the launch of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) spacecraft in 2006, and the multiple operational NPOESS launches in sun-synchronous orbital planes (nominally 13:30, 17:30, or 21:30 local equatorial crossing times) starting in 2009. Cloud and atmosphere polar-orbiting environmental satellite data will be profoundly improved in radiometric quality, spectral coverage, and spatial resolution relative to current operational civilian and military polar-orbiting systems. The NPOESS Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) will provide Environmental Data Records (EDRs) for day and night atmosphere and cloud operational requirements, as well as sea surface temperature (SST) and many important land EDRs by ground processing of raw data records (RDRs) from the VIIRS sensor. VIIRS will replace three currently operating sensors: the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Line-scanning System (OLS), the NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), and the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS Terra and Aqua) MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). This paper describes the VIIRS all-reflective 22-band single-sensor design, following the Critical Design Review (CDR) in Spring 2002. VIIRS provides low noise (driven by ocean color for the reflective visible and near-IR spectral bands and by SST for the emissive mid and long-wave IR spectral bands), excellent calibration and stability (driven by atmospheric aerosol and cloud EDRs, as well as SST), broad spectral coverage, and fine spatial resolution driven by the cloud imagery EDR. In addition to improved radiometric, spectral, and spatial performance, VIIRS features DMSP OLS-like near-constant resolution, global twice-daily coverage in each orbit plane, and direct heritage to proven design innovations from the successful Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) and Earth Observing System (Terra and Aqua) MODIS.
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