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Schedule including this lecture.
Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium
Date: Monday, February 25, 2002
The NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) is a joint mission among NASA, DoD, and NOAA. NPP will be launched in 2006 carrying three sensors that will continue many of the long-term climate measurement series being initiated by NASA's Terra and Aqua missions. Moderate resolution multispectral radiometric imaging of sea surface temperature, clouds, aerosols, and the land and ocean biosphere will be conducted by VIIRS, a sensor similar in purpose to the successful MODIS now flying on Terra. With 22 spectral bands at 370 to 740 meters spatial resolution and global daily coverage, this sensor will make more than a dozen of the most critical "24 Measurements" identified for the EOS program. Atmospheric temperature and moisture sounding will be made by an infrared interferometer (CrIS) and a scanning microwave system (ATMS) yielding accuracies of better than 1 degree Kelvin per Km in the lower atmosphere. CrIS uses a very different approach to sounding than does the AIRS instrument, which will be launched into orbit in April 2002. ATMS uses MMIC technology to reduce the mass and power requirements significantly below that of the predecessor sensors such as AMSU-A and –B. This talk will include technical descriptions of the three sensors and a discussion of both the interagency cooperation and the unique aspects of bridging between the research sensors of EOS and the operational sensors of the NPOESS.
Dr. Robert Murphy is the Project Scientist for the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP). This mission continues many of the critical climate measurement series being initiated by NASA's Terra and Aqua missions and provides risk reduction for the future operational system, NPOESS, the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System. Dr. Murphy also serves as the Project Scientist for the MODIS sensor, which is flying on EOS Terra and Aqua. He has been with NASA since 1978, serving initially as the Manager of Planetary Atmospheres Program at NASA HQ. In 1980, he moved to NASA GSFC where he was the Head of the Earth Resources Branch at NASA GSFC. In 1985, he returned to NASA HQ where he served as the Chief of the Land Processes Branch, the Chief of the Geophysics and Biogeochemistry Branch, and as a Special Assistant for International Programs. He assumed his current duties at NASA GSFC in 1995. A graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute (1963), he earned an MS in astronomy from Georgetown University (1966) and a Ph.D. in astronomy from Case Western Reserve University (1969). In between, he worked as a mathematician for the US Army Map Service. After completing his graduate studies, he was a Research Assistant Professor (in planetary remote sensing) at the University of Hawaii from 1969 to 1973. In 1973, he became the Executive Director of the Maryland Academy of Sciences, a science museum in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Dr. Eugene Waluschka
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