Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot last week defended his agency’s proposal to end its participation in the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), saying that 20 other spacecraft on orbit provide the same or better information.
“We’d rather put our research and analysis efforts around those spacecraft instead of DSCOVR,” Lightfoot testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice, Science subcommittee June 29.
A partnership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA and the Air Force, DSCOVR was launched in February 2015 to monitor space weather and observe changes in Earth’s atmosphere and climate.
NOAA processes DSCOVR’s space weather data, while NASA processes the Earth data. But in its fiscal year 2018 budget request, which is pending in Congress, NASA is proposing to save $1.7 million by ending its data-processing role.
At the subcommittee hearing, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) questioned NASA’s decision, saying the $1.7 million savings pales in comparison to the nearly $120 million already spent on DSCOVR. She asked Lightfoot to submit a list of the other spacecraft that NASA plans to rely on in place of DSCOVR.
“It seems foolish to me to refuse to spend $1.7 million, which is what processing and analyzing that data would continue to cost, when we’ve already made this huge investment in it,” Shaheen told Lightfoot.
NOAA seems to remain committed to DSCOVR’s space weather role, writing in its FY 2018 budget request that the refrigerator-sized satellite provides “critical space weather information” that is used to develop “accurate and early warnings of potentially destructive space weather events.” Radiation from solar storms can disrupt communication systems, electrical grids, Global Positioning System navigation, human spaceflight and satellite operations.
NOAA’s budget request seeks a $2.4 million increase to beef up on-orbit support for DSCOVR.
“Ensuring safe operations for the DSCOVR satellite has required a higher level of engineering and management support than anticipated, and has resulted in an increase in the day-to-day support required to continue operations,” NOAA wrote. “This request will provide … the resources to conduct timely recovery actions when an anomaly occurs, and will mitigate the risk of a delay or disruption in the flow of solar wind data to users.”