By Marina Malenic
Funding for development of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) should be sustained until a Defense Department requirements review for future weather satellites is completed, Air Force officials told lawmakers this week.
“We need to continue that work for NASA’s utility and the Air Force’s utility,” Gary Payton, the Air Force deputy undersecretary for space programs, told the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee during a March 10 hearing on Pentagon space program.
The Obama administration’s Fiscal 2011 budget proposes a major restructure of the program.
“The program is behind schedule, over budget, and underperforming,” the White House announced last month. “Independent reports and an administration task force have concluded that the current program cannot be successfully executed with the current management structure, and with the current budget structure.”
The administration blamed “management deficiencies that result from conflicting perspectives and priorities among the three agencies who manage the program” for the problems. “Serious lapses in capabilities loom as a result,” according to officials.
NPOESS was originally envisioned as a lower cost alternative to merge civil and military weather satellite programs. It was expected to improve global weather and climate coverage by merging Commerce Department (specifically the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA), Defense Department (specifically, Air Force) and NASA weather monitoring efforts.
The program has encountered several technical and management challenges, leading to a 2006 restructure after cost overruns triggered congressionally-mandated recertification. The restructured program at that time reduced the scale of the constellation from six main satellites (in three orbits) to four satellites (in two orbits).
The current official baseline life-cycle cost estimate is approximately $13.9 billion, according to the White House. That’s up from initial estimates of $6 billion early in the program.
Still, Payton said, funding should continue in the interim. He said equipment such as the sensors being developed now will be beneficial in any future program construct.
“The sensors that the Air Force will need are probably very similar to the sensors under construction right now,” he told the Senate panel.
The White House last month decided that NOAA and the Air Force will no longer continue to jointly procure the system. NOAA and NASA will take primary responsibility for the afternoon orbit, and DoD will take primary responsibility for the morning orbit. The agencies will continue to partner in those areas that have been successful in the past, such as a shared ground system.
“We expect much of the work being conducted by Northrop Grumman and their subcontracts will be critical to ensuring continuity of weather observation in the afternoon orbit,” the White House said in a statement last month. “DoD will work closely with the civil partners to ensure the relevant efforts continue productively and efficiently, and ensure the requirements of the national weather and climate communities are taken into consideration in building the resultant program for the morning orbit.”
Payton also told lawmakers that the Obama administration’s decision to cancel the NASA Constellation program will lead to cost increases for satellite launch services.
“The decision to replace NASA’s Constellation program with a new, more technology-focused approach to space exploration, will likely reduce the customer base for solid rocket motors and potentially increase demand for liquid engines and strengthen the liquid-fuel rocket industrial base,” Payton said. “We have initiated several efforts to examine the severity of these business base issues and identify potential mitigation steps.”
The Constellation program was designed to replace the Space Shuttle program. It was expected to launch astronauts into low Earth orbit (LEO) and, eventually, to the moon and beyond. The administration instead advocates support for commercial efforts to deliver crews to the International Space Station.
Payton warned that the space industrial base is weakening and that costs for launch equipment will continue to rise for the foreseeable future.
“Launch costs are still rising,” he said. “Factors contributing to rising launch costs are the depletion of inventory purchased in prior years, reduced number of annual buys increasing unit costs, and a deteriorating subcontractor business base without commercial customers.”
During the hearing, Vice Adm. David Dorsett, director of naval intelligence, also informed the panel of another schedule slip in the service’s next-generation Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite by Lockheed Martin [LMT].
“Last year you were informed that MOUS was going to be delayed by about 11 months,” Dorsett said.
The Navy’s latest estimate, Dorsett said, is for the first satellite to be launched in September 2011, with an on-orbit capability of December 2011.
“That’s about a 10-month delay from what you were briefed previously,” he told the senators.