Next NASA Earth-Observing Satellite Arrives in California for Launch

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP) is the first of a new generation of satellites that will observe many facets of our changing Earth. The satellite will collect critical data to improve our understanding of long-term climate change and short-term weather conditions. With NPP, NASA continues many key data records initiated by the agency's Earth Observing System satellites by monitoring changes occurring in the atmosphere, oceans, vegetation, ice and solid Earth.

On Aug. 28, NPP was placed in a shipping container and loaded on a transport truck at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. After Tuesday's arrival, the satellite was unloaded and moved into the clean room at the AstroTech facility for launch preparation.

"The NPP team has produced an outstanding satellite and kept to schedule over the past year and a half," said Ken Schwer, NPP project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The world is looking forward to NPP's scientific measurements."