RSA provides NASA a faster, better, cheaper method for the purchase of satellite systems through a catalog, allowing for shorter turnaround time from mission conception to launch. The BCP 2000 provides NASA with the stable and highly accurate Earth remote-sensing platform it was seeking to replace the data lost by the failure of Japan's Advanced Earth Observing Satellite in June 1997. The scatterometer sensor, SeaWinds, built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, records sea surface wind speed and direction data for global climate research.
Winds are a key factor in determining global weather patterns.
Winds over the oceans affect air-sea changes in heat, moisture, gases and particulates which are important for weather predictions. Ball Aerospace built the spacecraft bus from its BCP 2000 product line and was responsible for the integration and test of the total space segment consisting of the BCP 2000 bus and the JPL-built scatterometer payload.