Raytheon Co. completed factory acceptance testing of the command, control and communications segment for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), the company announced Nov. 15.

A Raytheon-Northrop Grumman program team conducted the six-month test of the ground segment, which contains 1.8 million lines of code with five major hardware subsystems. Northrop Grumman Space Technology is the NPOESS prime contractor and has overall responsibility for program development.

NPOESS hardware will be installed at 10 sites: the NPOESS mission management center in Suitland, Md.; data processing centers at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., and Suitland, Md.; data communications sites at White Sands, N.M., and Svalbard, Norway; system integration and maintenance sites at Boulder, Colo., Indianapolis, Redondo Beach, Calif., and Landover, Md.; and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Implementation and integration of all sites is scheduled to be complete by May with a segment acceptance test scheduled for September.