The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) team led by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) kicked off the new year with the delivery of a critical sensor, the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). NPOESS is the nation’s next-generation, low-Earth orbiting operational weather and climate monitoring system that will provide operational and long-term weather and climate data to military and civilian users around the clock for the next two decades.

As part of the NPOESS system, VIIRS will provide highly detailed color imagery of clouds, vegetation, snow cover, dust storms and other environmental phenomena. Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTN) built the instrument under contract to NPOESS prime contractor, Northrop Grumman. A second VIIRS flight unit scheduled for deployment on the first NPOESS spacecraft, known as C1, is maturing steadily. Component production is in progress and build up of the sensor is on-going.