[Satellite TODAY Insider 10-27-11] The Ball Aerospace-built National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) has been placed inside the fairing nose cone of a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta 2 launch vehicle in preparation for its Oct. 28 launch from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, Ball Aerospace confirmed Oct. 26.

   The $1.5 billion NPP satellite is the first to measure both short- and long-term changes in weather and climate and will carry five instruments to study temperature and water in the atmosphere. The satellite also will study how clouds and aerosols affect temperature and how plants on land and in the ocean respond to environmental changes. The satellite is one of NASA’s 14 Earth observation missions that it is currently managing. The agency hopes NPP will operate for approximately five years.

   “This is really the first mission that is designed to provide observations for both weather forecasters and climate researchers,” NPOESS Project Scientist Jim Gleason said in a statement. “NPOESS’ observations will help scientists better predict the future environment and these predictions are incredibly valuable for economic, security and humanitarian reasons.”

The NPOESS program began in 1994 to combine the civilian and U.S. military weather spacecraft into a single program using a shared spacecraft. Ball Aerospace built the NPP satellite BCP 2000 satellite bus for the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center under a fixed-price contract. Ball also built one of five instruments for NPP — the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS).

   In February 2010, the Obama Administration proposed drastic changes to NASA’s manned Constellation lunar mission and the NPOESS program in the U.S. government’s 2011 fiscal year budget, which terminated NASA’s work on Orion, the follow-up vehicle to the space shuttle, and ended development on two NASA rockets designed to fly manned missions to the moon. A lack of interest by the military to continue providing 50 percent of the program’s funding also stalled NPOESS’ progress. The program’s initial estimated cost of $6.5 billion has doubled due to development problems on NPOESS sensors, causing launch dates to be postponed by several years, according to the OSTP.

   Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman both have NPOESS contracts for hardware on the satellite. Automation technology company ABB also received a contract worth nearly $50 million to develop the satellite’s interferometer. “Since the beginning [of the NPP program], this project has always been very exciting for all ABB employees and especially for those who worked on the project itself. The launch of the NPP satellite marks the achievement of great teamwork," ABB Program Manager Philippe Berube said in a statement.