Office of System Architecture and Advanced Planning (OSAAP)

The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) created the Office of Systems Architecture and Advanced Planning (OSAAP) in 2013 to position NESDIS to address a fundamental shift in environmental observation needs and how we provide critical products and services.

Since its inception, NESDIS has flown satellites in two primary orbits—first, in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and then in geostationary orbit (GEO). Over four generations of satellites, NESDIS has evolved these LEO and GEO capabilities and their unique ground systems to the state-of-the-art systems providing critical data today.

Today, more users are demanding new and better Earth observation data, greater capabilities are emerging in both commercial aerospace and among our strategic international partnerships, and technology is evolving rapidly. These trends both necessitate and enable a new approach to developing the next-generation of NOAA’s operational Earth observation systems that will improve the products and services we provide.

NESDIS is transitioning our organization to apply enterprise approaches that enable provision of an enhanced portfolio of Earth observation products and services that address user needs. The NESDIS Reimagined focus is on providing a fully integrated digital understanding of our Earth environment that can evolve quickly to meet changing user expectations by leveraging U.S. space-based operational environmental capabilities along with the capabilities of our partners and the commercial sector. NESDIS has shifted from evolving LEO and GEO satellites independently over time to implementing an agile architecture based on enterprise-wide assessments of the mix of NOAA, partner, and commercial data sources that will best support the products and services NESDIS is committed to providing.

To support the NESDIS enterprise vision, OSAAP contributes the following:

• Lead the architecture and advanced planning for future NOAA environmental satellites, ground systems, and services.
• Collaborate with US Government agencies, international partners, and industry to leverage technology development to meet NOAA mission needs.
• Plan the implementation and evolution of user-focused products and services supporting the NOAA Mission Service Areas, including development and sustainment of the NESDIS Level Requirements (NLR).
• Conduct long term architecture studies including the NOAA Satellite Observing System Architecture study, whose outcomes led to recommendations for the highest value satellite constellations to meet the NESDIS Level Requirements based on a cost-benefit evaluation of over 100 different constellation options.
• Conduct of the NESDIS Ground Enterprise Study, which will transition the enterprise to a ground services approach blending myriad sources of data into optimal products and services.
• Assess industry and partner satellite data products and services for operational use by NOAA Line Offices.

• Develop and maintain a slate of systems engineering and project management policies and procedures to guide NESDIS’s enterprise approach and help reach optimal solutions.
• Execution of strategic planning process for NESDIS that outlines NESDIS’s key strategic milestones over the next five years to achieve its enterprise-wide strategic vision.
• Perform system analysis and performance assessment to optimize the effective implementation of NOAA environmental satellite systems and services in response to user needs.