Cost overruns and mismanagement plague weather satellite program

A blue-ribbon panel —chaired by Thomas Young, former head of Goddard Space Flight Center—has called on the White House to overhaul the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program as costs have spiraled out-of-control to nearly double its original $7 billion price tag.

NPOESS, which was established in 1993, is designed to replace weather forecasting satellites from the Department of Defense and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, and to help gather long-term climate data. But the instruments have been scaled back and the project has “extraordinarily low probability of success,” says the panel’s report.

At an oversight hearing held by the House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology last month , that also included an assessment from the Government Accountability Office , Young stated that maintaining access to weather data is “at extreme risk” and placed management—a committee with equal weight given to representatives of NASA, NOAA, and DOD—as the main reason for the program’s failure.

“This Committee has devoted years of oversight to NPOESS,” said Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC). “Despite our pressure to get this program under control, we are again facing cost overruns and slipping schedules. At the current pace, we won’t see a NPOESS launch until 2039. That is obviously unacceptable. The time has come to reorganize the management of this program to guarantee a successful launch.”

Young recommended that NOAA, which is the principle stakeholder in the project, be put directly in charge.

Paul Guinnessy

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