EL SEGUNDO, Calif. – In this lab at Raytheon, engineers are building an instrument called VIIRS that stands for Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite.

As senior manager of civil and environmental space, Shawn Cochran has come to see their progress.

"So we're in the middle of test and calibration for the opto-mechanical module, there's a rotating telescope inside the VIIRS instrument that rotates a little faster than twice every second," said Cochran.

The telescope takes a picture across the Earth at 3,000-kilometers wide. There are two VIIRS instruments already in orbit.

One purpose of this instrument is to observe Earth and produce science that weather forecasters and climatologists use to understand what's happening to our planet’s system.  

"All that earth-observing data comes in and it's turned into weather forecasts that are used by the national weather service and then eventually makes its way to your local television meteorologist," said Cochran.  

At this time of year, we know how prone California is to deadly wildfires. VIIRS can detect fires and when it does, it sends a notification and the precise location.

"So now instead of fire resources being applied as sort of a broad scale to try to attack the fire, we have precise geo-located coordinates for fire resources to be applied," said Cochran.  

With two satellites in orbit, they can get a look of a wildfire and see it again 50 minutes later to track the direction it's moving. It also follows the smoke chain.

"VIIRS allows us to be able to pinpoint the fire through the smoke but also watch that cloud and that soot and help understand how it's propagating," said Cochran.

How VIIRS is used is driven by NASA, NOAA, and their international partners. The data collected is shared freely by treaty. By working together, we get a whole picture that helps predictions.

"It may not seem important to people what goes on in Japan, but I promise you the weather in Japan will be your weather in Los Angeles three days from now," said Cochran.  

In addition to weather, VIIRS helps in climate, environmental changes, and phenomena. It can even measure sea surface temperature from space, something that matters to Southern Californians. And such an important instrument is built right here in our SoCal backyard.