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Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP)
Please note: The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) will continue through September 2026, the planned end of the DMSP mission. Due to recent changes, NCEI's source for these data are being updated so there will be a data gap as we work to implement the changes. Send comments and questions to: ncei.info@noaa.gov.
The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) is a Department of Defense program run by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC). DMSP designs, builds, launches, and maintains satellites monitoring the meteorological, oceanographic, and solar-terrestrial physics environments.
Each DMSP satellite has a 101 minute, sun-synchronous near-polar orbit at an altitude of 830km above the surface of the earth. The visible and infrared Operational Linescan System (OLS) sensors collect images across a 3000km swath, providing global coverage twice per day. The combination of day/night and dawn/dusk satellites monitors global information such as clouds every six hours. The microwave imager (MI) and sounders (T1, T2) cover one half the width of the visible and infrared swath. These instruments cover polar regions at least twice and the equatorial region once per day. The space environment sensors (J4, M, IES) record along-track plasma densities, velocities, composition and drifts.