The Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS) was a

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and superv ...

weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

system to have been built by

Northrop Grumman Corporation Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military technology provi ...

projected for launch in 2018. In January 2012, the US Air Force cancelled the program. It was replaced with the Weather System Follow-on Microwave (WSF-M). DWSS was a follow-on for the

Defense Meteorological Satellite Program The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) monitors meteorological, oceanographic, and solar-terrestrial physics for the United States Department of Defense. The program is managed by the United States Space Force with on-orbit operat ...

(DMSP) mission. The DWSS, together with the still continuing Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) project, was to replace the

National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) was to be the United States' next-generation satellite system that would monitor the Earth's weather, Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere, oceans, land, and near-space envi ...

(NPOESS) project which itself was cancelled in January 2010.Reuters: Northrop in $427 million U.S. Air Force satellite deal
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References

Weather satellites of the United States {{meteorology-stub