SOURCEFORGE » RALF » 2014 Reception of weather images

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h1. 1. Brief history about NOAA satellites

The NOAA/POES satellites are monitored by the association _National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration_. The NOAA was created in October 1970 for U.S. with the main purpose of provide information about the condition of the oceans and the atmosphere. Concretely, POES satellites send weather information to the _National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service_ (NESDIS), which processes and distributes it to the _National Weather Service_ (NWS). NWS is in charge of coordinating the possible warnings to the citizens. 

Before the NOAA agency, first meteorological satellite was launched on April 1960 with the purpose of capturing pictures of the Earth from other perspectives. This first mission was realized by NASA. The payload of the satellite, called TIROS 1, was equipped with two slow-scan television cameras, which take pictures of the Earth. During the next years, additional TIROS satellites were launched improving the technology of the instruments. From 1970 onwards, this industry has been managed and governed by NOAA. The organization recollects the data sent  by the satellites thanks to the NOAA's satellite system and all the information is archived and distributed to the users. The space segment of the system is provided by NASA. Concretely, the research laboratory _Goddard Space Flight Center_ (GSFC) built and launched the NOAA satellites with all desired instruments.

NOAA's system operates in two types of satellite systems. Both types are indispensable for a complete global weather network. On the one hand, _Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite_ (GOES) provides continuous information in short-term of weather forecasting, several storm tracking and meteorology research. These satellites deliver weather information always in the same place of the Earth. On the other hand, the _Polar Operational Environmental Satellite_ (POES) establishes a large-term link for a climate monitoring and weather predictions. 

From the beginning many satellites have been launched, but the current satellites have a higher level of performance on their sensors. Nowadays, the NOAA's environmental satellites contain the following nine sensors:

* *AVHRR/3*  Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer 

*HIRS/4* High Resolution Infrared Sounder

* *AMSU-A* Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit - A

* *MHS* Microwave Humidity Sounder

* *SEM-2* Microwave Humidity Sounder 

* *SBUV/2* Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet Radiometer 

* *DCS 2* Data Collection system

* *SAR* Search&Rescue Instrument

* *DDR* Digital Data Recorder

h1. 2. Poes satellites

h1. 3. Payload

h1. 4. Downlink transmission data from POES satellites

h1. 5. Current NOAA/POES satellites