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Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)

About JPSS

JPSS is the nation’s advanced series of polar-orbiting environmental satellites. They provide sophisticated meteorological data of Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and landscape for seasonal, short- and long-term monitoring and forecasting.

The JPSS fleet is enhancing weather forecasting by:

  • Orbiting Earth 14 times per day
  • Providing global coverage of weather observation twice a day
  • Enabling scientists and forecasters to study long-term climate trends

Additionally, JPSS is accelerating weather data to fuel accurate forecasting. The global measurements and data collected from the JPSS fleet will enable scientists and forecasters to more accurately predict severe weather three-to-seven-days in advance.

Mission Communications

The satellites use three different types of L3Harris equipment to communicate images and scientific data - an S-Band transceiver and two transmitters.

CTT-520 Transceiver

S-Band Transceiver

Our S-Band transceiver communicates with the Tracking Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS), a NASA network that provides tracking data services between spacecraft in the low-earth orbit and ground stations.

T-748 High Data Rate Transmitter

Transmitters

Our X-Band transmitter is the High-Rate Data transmitter, which is the direct broadcast continuous downlink. It sends down real-time mission data to users equipped to capture the broadcast when JPSS-2 is overhead.

Our Ka-Band transmitter is the Stored Mission Data (SMD) transmitter, which transmits scheduled mission data to the ground stations. The two primary ground stations collect data from the SMD as the satellite passes.

Additionally, L3Harris provided the integral launch avionics suite for the first JPSS mission, for the JPSS-2 mission on the ATLAS V launch vehicle.

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