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Satellite Gap May Jeopardize U.S. Weather Prediction

Posted on: Wednesday, 16 November 2005, 19:00 CST

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON -- A looming gap in U.S. polar satellite coverage may halve the ability to predict some hurricanes and eat into U.S. war fighting capabilities early in the next decade, Bush administration officials acknowledged to Congress on Wednesday.

Currently, polar-orbiting platforms account for more than 90 percent of the data in prediction models used by the departments of defense and commerce, Ronald Sega, the Pentagon's top space official, told the House of Representatives' Science Committee.

"A gap in polar coverage will impact commanders' situational awareness and operational mission planning," said Sega, an Air Force undersecretary. He cited harm to precision navigation, communications and ballistic missile defense as well as weather-predicting shortfalls.

Pressed on the fallout for forecasting, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, said "in some cases you may degrade it 50 percent."

In other cases, he said, the reduced predictability may be "just a few percent." NOAA is the Commerce Department arm that is the government's chief weather-forecasting agency.

Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. is developing the so-called National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS under a contract awarded in August 2002. The system is key to developing three- to seven-day weather forecasts for civilian and military purposes.

The project is funded jointly by the Pentagon and Commerce Department. Raytheon Co. of Waltham, Massachusetts, is Northrop's chief subcontractor.

The system, now projected to cost nearly $10 billion, is as much as $3 billion over budget and as many as three to four years behind schedule, according to the Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigative arm.

The first NPOESS satellite is expected to be available for launch no earlier than fiscal 2012, Sega testified. This would be more than three years after needed to plug the gap as the existing operational satellites reach the end of their useful lives, David Powner, GAO's director of information technology issues, testified.

NPOESS is a "program in crisis," he said, calling for greater contract oversight, more timely identification of potential glitches and expanded executive-level involvement.

The military would seek to minimize the gap in polar satellite coverage by adding a range of "spaceborne and airborne" platform for weather data, Sega told the panel. It would also seek to boost the lifespan of critical components on four yet-to-be launched defense weather satellites, he said.

Alexis Livanos, president of Northrop Grumman's Space Technology business unit, tied more than 80 percent of the system's cost growth and delay to development of new sensors, including a system to see through clouds.

In some cases, he said, the headaches resulted from "systemic subcontractor process issues that required, and continue to require, broad-reaching Northrop Grumman and government intervention for proper resolution." He did not name the alleged offenders.

Among the project's chief instrument suppliers are Raytheon, ITT Industries Inc., Boeing Co. and Ball Corp.

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On the Net:

http://www.noaa.gov

Source: REUTERS

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