Raytheon Achieves NPOESS Ground System Milestone on Schedule, on Budget

Raytheon Company
has completed a major development milestone on the National Polar-orbiting
Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program, the nation’s
next-generation meteorological satellite system.

The successful qualification testing of the third software increment for
the Command, Control, and Communications Segment (C3S) is a significant step
toward declaration of ground-readiness in preparation for the launch of the
NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite.

“The NPOESS program is very pleased that more than 1.7 million lines of
code and 40 racks of equipment have been delivered on time, on cost, and
meeting our specifications,” said John Cunningham, director of the NPOESS
Integrated Program Office. “Software cost growth has been a particular
challenge for the satellite industry, and the carefully planned reuse of
existing code, designed in from the beginning, has allowed this outstanding
performance. Congratulations to Raytheon on a job very well done.”

The C3S software provides a highly automated and integrated suite of eight
subsystems at the new NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
Satellite Operations Facility (NSOF), including Mission Management, Command
and Control, Enterprise Management, and Data Monitoring and Recovery. The
demanding NPOESS data latency and availability requirements are met with a
globally distributed architecture with 21 operational sites in 12 countries.
The NPOESS operators will manage and control these assets from the NSOF.

The C3S software was developed in three increments, over two years, using
an iterative development methodology supported by mature CMMI-level 3
(Capability Maturity Model Integration) compliant processes. The cost-
effective and on-time development was facilitated by the use of Raytheon
Eclipse(TM) satellite command and control and Equinox(TM) mission management
product lines, and operational Raytheon ground systems. This reuse yielded a
labor cost savings to the government of 80 percent and significantly reduced
the schedule risk inherent in a large-scale software development.

Raytheon has responsibility for development of the NPOESS ground segments.

In addition to C3S, Raytheon is developing the Interface Data Processing
Segment (IDPS). Utilizing the same development processes, IDPS has completed
qualification of the second major software build. IDPS ingests the raw data
from the four NPP sensors and generates more than 25 environmental products
required for vital weather analyses and forecasts to support military
operations, civil applications and scientific research. Raytheon’s
contribution to the NPOESS program will make possible more accurate and timely
global weather and environmental data production.

Raytheon is part of the Northrop Grumman Space Technology NPOESS team.

Northrop Grumman Space Technology leads the team as the prime contractor
and has overall responsibility for the program development effort.

Raytheon Company, with 2004 sales of $20.2 billion, is an industry leader
in defense and government electronics, space, information technology,
technical services, and business and special mission aircraft. With
headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 80,000 people worldwide.