Historic First Image Downloaded from VIIRS

• New satellite weather and climate sensor offers pristine view of the world

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. - Raytheon Company's (NYSE: RTN) Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite has produced its first image aboard the recently launched NASA NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) spacecraft. The visible spectrum image shows the East Coast of the United States in unprecedented sharpness and detail.

"The VIIRS visible imager is performing excellently and we expect the data will be of great value to the weather and climate monitoring communities," said Bill Hart, vice president of Space Systems for Raytheon's Space and Airborne Systems business. "We look forward to continued high quality imagery and expect other facets of the instrument to check out equally well."


NPP will function as a bridge between current NOAA operational weather and NASA climate research satellites and a new group of satellites known as the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). VIIRS is the primary JPSS instrument responsible for global imagery, land and sea surface temperature monitoring, cloud characterization and other key environmental data.

Source : Raytheon Corporation (NYSE: RTN)