NOAA Roasted In House, Senate, On Satellite Oversight Woes Afflicting Costs, Schedules Of Both GOES-R, NPOESS Programs
The GOES-R satellite program cost estimates jumped again, to $7.67 billion from an earlier $7 billion projection, even as new questions arise as to whether the program can remain on schedule, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported.
David A. Powner, the watchdog agency director of information technology management issues, detailed problems with the program in testimony before the House Science and Technology Committee energy and environment subcommittee.
The satellite program already has reduced the number of satellites and the number of sensors they will carry because of earlier cost growth.
Repeated delays in the program raise questions of whether GOES-R will be launched and peering down from the heavens in time to take over work done now by aging satellites slated for retirement, so there won’t be gaps in data sets covering decades.
Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), the subcommittee chairman, conceded that problems in the GOES-R satellite program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) haven’t yet reached the same problematical level as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), but still, GOES-R “has not been a model of excellence either.”
Cost estimates for the satellites roughly doubled, and the number of satellites was halved. And then, costs rose still further.
NASA awarded the contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT] for GOES-R in December, and later that month The Boeing Co. [BA] protested the award, in papers filed with the GAO, which also is the federal umpire agency. On Feb. 19, the GAO dismissed the protest at NASA’s request, on the understanding that NASA would reevaluate the proposals from Boeing and Lockheed and make a new award, which is expected next month.
After NASA selects the spacecraft contractor and NOAA selects the ground system contractor, NOAA will set a launch readiness date.
Baird isn’t happy with the situation.
“GOES satellites lost the new instrument that would expand our ability to sample atmospheric conditions at more levels,” Baird observed. “NOAA found the technical challenges too great given the time and money it had.”
Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, the ranking Republican, also was concerned, especially by soaring GOES-R costs. “The price tag is up $670 million since we last met, even though the program has now been downsized from 81 (sensors and other items) on the satellites to 32,” he continued.
Even when the two satellites in this series are launched, “we’re now not sure if there will be an in-orbit backup” for emergencies, and that means “that one mishap with the new instruments and we could lose our forecasting eyes on half the world.”
Satellites are critical to predicting formation and paths of hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Inglis asked whether NOAA has sufficient management competence to run the GOES-R program, or whether Congress may “need to give the reins to another agency entirely?”
He observed that $7.7 billion “is a lot of taxpayer money.”
Originally, the program was estimated to cost $6.2 billion for four satellites with a full complement of sensors. That ballooned to $11.4 billion. Then the program was cut to two satellites and the launch date for the first bird was shoved off to 2014, from an earlier plan involving a series of launches in 2007 to 2020.
Mary Ellen Kicza, NOAA assistant administrator for satellite and information services, said satellite acquisitions are complex and difficult, and “a challenge to build.”
But she said that NOAA is “making significant strides in developing a better process for designing and acquiring our satellites.”
Senators Blister Programs
Meanwhile, on the other side of Capitol Hill, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee commerce, justice and science subcommittee, also expressed concern at NOAA oversight and management of satellite programs.
With the newly sworn-in Commerce Secretary Gary Locke in the witness chair, Mikulski said that “poor oversight of the … NOAA satellite programs must end.”
She added that “satellites account for 25 percent of NOAA’s budget, with an expected $1.3 billion request [from President Obama] in fiscal year 2010.” Locke agreed with that figure.
She noted that “satellites are critical to weather predictions and warnings, and observing changes in the … climate. Satellites help save lives and save the planet. I want to know how the [Commerce] Department plans to handle recent recommendations made to the administration to realistically bring the satellite program back on track and maintain proper oversight of the program and the contractor.”
Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, ranking Republican on the subcommittee, also criticized the programs, complaining of “cost and schedule overruns within NOAA satellite acquisition programs.”
Loss of life and property in catastrophic storms amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars in recent decades, Shelby noted.
He deplored the Commerce Department and its “lack of oversight on NOAA’s satellite programs,” including both NPOESS and GOES-R.
NPOESS costs soared from $6.5 billion for six satellites to $13.6 billion for four satellites with less capability, he recalled.
“This program is a complete failure for NOAA and an even bigger failure for the taxpayer,” Shelby said.
And now, he said, the department might choose to build two more NPOESS satellites.
Referring to prime contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. [NOC], Shelby asked, “how can you reward a contractor that has blatantly failed in its mission and costs the taxpayer billions in cost overruns?”
Shelby added a blunt warning: “If you choose to go forward with this effort, I will oppose it,” Shelby told Locke.
The senator also termed GOES-R “a grave failure,” with an estimate of a $6.2 billion cost for four satellites switching to $7.7 billion for only two satellites, “with a delivery date six years behind schedule.”
Shelby alleged that “management and acquisition oversight does not exist at the Department of Commerce.”