Sensor for NPOESS

NASA and NOAA Wednesday have announced a plan to restore an ozone layer climate sensor to the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program.

The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) Limb will be returned to NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite that is set to launch in 2009.

The NPOESS partners will give conditional authority to Northrop Grumman Space Technology to proceed with restoration of the instrument. The effort will depend on successful negotiations between the company and the government on the full cost of the work.

The NPOESS is a tri-agency environmental monitoring program directed by the Department of Commerce, the Department of Defense and NASA. A recent restructuring of the program had removed the OMPS Limb sensor from the NPP mission.

Restoring the OMPS Limb sensor directly addresses one of the recommendations of the recently released National Research Council's report "Earth Science Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond."