Launch date: 28 April 2006

Status: On-going

Main Observation: Studying clouds in detail to better characterize the role they play in regulating Earth's climate.

Science Objective:

• Profile the vertical structure of clouds: Understanding the vertical structure of clouds is fundamentally important to improving our understanding of how clouds affect both the local and large-scale environment.

• Measure the profiles of cloud liquid water and ice water content: These two quantities-predicted by cloud process and global scale models alike-determine practically all other cloud properties, including precipitation and cloud optical properties.

• Measure profiles of cloud optical properties: These measurements, when combined with water and ice content information, provide critical tests of key cloud process parameterizations and enable the estimation of flux profiles and radiative heating rates through the atmospheric column.

Launch date: 10 June 2011

Status: Completed

Days of Operation: 10 June 2011 - 8 June 2015

Main Observation: A pathfinder mission to demonstrate that accurate, scientifically-significant measurements of salinity could be made from space.

Science Objective:

• Observe and model the processes that relate salinity variations to climatic changes in the global cycling of water.

• Understand how these salinity variations influence the general ocean circulation.

Launch date: 28 October 2011

Status: On-going

Main Observation: To extend key measurements in support of long-term monitoring of climate trends and of global biological productivity.

Science Objective:

• Suomi NPP will provide NASA with the continuation of a set of global-change observations initiated by the EOS Terra, Aqua, and Aura missions.

• The observations will contribute to the Systematic Measurements element of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE). Research Strategy for 2000-2010.

• The systematic measurements will be used in the development of consistent, long-term data records from multi-instrument, multi-platform, and multi-year observations, with due attention to calibration and validation.

• In that context, Suomi NPP's Environmental Data Records (EDRs), similar to EOS Level 2 swath products, will be generated in near-real time in NPOESS production facilities.

• NASA will help validate and enhance the algorithms, driving them toward science-grade quality where possible.

• NPP also serves as a risk-reduction demonstration for key aspects of NPOESS, the nation's future polar-orbiting operational satellite system.

• Together, Suomi NPP's objectives will allow NASA science programs to transition their systematic observation requirements from research grade missions to NPOESS and other operational missions.

Launch date: 11 February 2013

Status: On-going

Main Observation: Collect data jointly to provide coincident images of the global and surface including coastal regions, polar ice, islands, and continental areas.

Science Objective:

• Characterize and monitor land-cover use and change over time for global climate research, polar studies, land use and land cover change, and the impacts of natural events as well as human activities on Earth's surface.

Launch date: 27 February 2014

Status: On-going

Main Observation: Consists of a network, or constellation, of additional satellites that together will provide next-generation global observations of precipitation from space.

Science Objective:

• Climate Prediction-Improve climate prediction through progress in quantifying space-time variability of precipitation along with improvements in achieving water budget closure, plus focused research on relationships between precipitation and climate variations.

• Weather Prediction-Improve the accuracy of global and regional numerical weather prediction models through accurate and precise measurements of instantaneous rain rates, made frequently and with global distribution, plus focused research on more advanced techniques in satellite rainfall data assimilation.

• Flood/Fresh Water Resource Prediction-Improve flood and freshwater resource prediction through frequent sampling and complete Earth coverage of high-resolution precipitation measurements, plus focused research on more innovative designs in hydro-meteorological modeling.

Launch date: 2 July 2014

Status: On-going

Main Observation: Help characterize carbon dioxide sources and sinks on regional scales at monthly intervals for 2 years.

Science Objective:

• Improve our understanding of the geographic distribution of CO2 sources and sinks (surface fluxes) and the processes controlling their variability on seasonal time scales.

• Validate a passive spectroscopic measurement approach and analysis concept that is well suited for future systematic CO2 monitoring missions.

Launch date: 31 January 2015

Status: On-going

Main Observation: Uses a combined radiometer and high-resolution radar to measure surface soil moisture and freeze-thaw state.

Science Objective:

• With “fast-track” development, it is possible that SMAP could provide critical gap-filling soil moisture measurements for NPOESS, which were lost when the Conical Microwave Imager/Sounder was canceled from the first NPOESS platform.