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| NOAA-21 | |
|---|---|
| Name | NOAA-21 |
| Mission type | Weather satellite |
| Operator | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
| Cospar id | 2018-021A |
| Satcat | 43285 |
| Website | NOAA |
| Spacecraft type | Polar-orbiting satellite |
| Manufacturer | Ball Aerospace |
| Launch date | 2018-11-10 |
| Launch vehicle | United Launch Alliance Delta II |
| Launch site | Vandenberg Air Force Base |
| Orbit reference | Geocentric |
| Orbit regime | Sun-synchronous |
| Instruments | ATMS, CrIS, VIIRS, CERES, OMPS |
NOAA-21 NOAA-21 is a polar-orbiting environmental satellite operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and developed in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, designed to extend the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership lineage and to provide continuity for the Joint Polar Satellite System. The satellite carries a suite of imaging and sounding instruments intended to support weather forecasting for the National Weather Service, climate monitoring for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and environmental research for institutions such as the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
NOAA-21 continues the polar-orbiting program that succeeded platforms like NOAA-19 and the Suomi NPP spacecraft, filling critical roles in global observing systems coordinated by entities including the World Meteorological Organization, the Group on Earth Observations, and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites. The mission supports operational centers such as the National Hurricane Center, the Aviation Weather Center, and the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center by providing radiometric and hyperspectral data used in assimilation systems at centers like the NCEP Global Forecast System and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
The spacecraft bus was produced by Ball Aerospace and integrates instruments including the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES), and the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), instruments developed through partnerships among Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, NASA Langley Research Center, and the NOAA Satellite and Information Service. CrIS delivers hyperspectral infrared sounding used by research groups at NASA Ames Research Center and operational centers like NCEP, while VIIRS provides moderate-resolution imagery relied upon by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Centers for Environmental Information, and the U.S. Geological Survey.
NOAA-21 operates in a sun-synchronous, near-polar orbit to ensure consistent local solar times for observations comparable to missions such as MetOp-A, MetOp-B, and MetOp-C. Mission operations are coordinated by the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility and supported by ground stations including those at Svalbard Satellite Station, McMurdo Station, and the Alaska Satellite Facility. Data from NOAA-21 feed into numerical weather prediction pipelines at centers including NCEP, ECMWF, and research models at institutions like the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
NOAA-21 launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a United Launch Alliance vehicle, joining a series of launches that included NOAA-20 and the JPSS-1 mission; the deployment sequence and orbit insertion were monitored by agencies including United States Space Force and the Joint Space Operations Center. Post-launch commissioning activities involved instrument checks with collaboration from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, engineering teams at Ball Aerospace, and science teams from NOAA and NASA.
Data products derived from NOAA-21's instruments include temperature and moisture profiles from CrIS and ATMS used by the Global Forecast System, sea surface temperature and vegetation indices from VIIRS used by the National Centers for Environmental Information and NOAA Fisheries, and radiative flux measurements from CERES used in studies by the IPCC and the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. OMPS provides ozone column and profile products used by the World Meteorological Organization's ozone assessment panels and by research groups at NASA Goddard and the NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory to track events like polar ozone depletion episodes and volcanic aerosol injections noted in studies by the Global Ozone Research and Monitoring Project.
The ground segment uses networks of ground stations including Svalbard Satellite Station, the McMurdo Station data relay, and continental stations coordinated through the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility and NASA's Near Earth Network; processing centers such as the STAR (Center for Satellite Applications and Research) and NESDIS produce calibrated, geolocated Level 1 and Level 2 products. Data assimilation groups at NCEP, ECMWF, and the Met Office ingest NOAA-21 radiances and retrievals into reanalysis projects like ERA5 and MERRA-2, supporting applications for agencies like the National Hurricane Center and the U.S. Forest Service.
As a continuation of the Suomi NPP/JPSS heritage, the mission contributed to operational forecasting, climate data records used by the IPCC, and long-term continuity similar to programs such as Landsat and Terra. NOAA-21's datasets have been integrated into multi-mission archives at institutions including the National Centers for Environmental Information and used in scientific studies by the American Meteorological Society and academic groups at universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Wisconsin–Madison to advance understanding of atmospheric dynamics, cryospheric change, and radiative forcing. Category:Earth observation satellites