NPOESS Program Run With Cost Savings Paramount, Not Mission Success: Study

Witnesses: NPOESS Is Broke, And It Is Time To Fix It; Yet Another $1 Billion Cost Rise Is Predicted

Costs of the National Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS, have soared to $13.95 billion and are almost certain to jump another $1 billion, with yet further increases likely, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

That was the unwelcome message the House Science and Technology Committee investigations and oversight subcommittee heard.

A report from the NPOESS Independent Review Team was equally gloomy, finding that the current NPOESS program has an extraordinarily low probability of success; that a critical continuity of data about the Earth and its climate may be interrupted because NPOESS is taking so long to develop; and that NPOESS is being managed with cost savings instead of mission success as the paramount objective.

Subcommittee Chairman Brad Miller (D-N.C.), observed that during his first year in Congress, in 2003, he was in a hearing on NPOESS woes, with predictions then that the first NPOESS satellite would launch this year.

Now, the first flight is seen in 2014. That works out to a five-year delay over a six-year period. "At this rate, we will not get an NPOESS satellite ready for launch until 2039," Miller said, only half in jest.

The basic problem is that NPOESS is a program run with three bosses: NASA, NOAA and the Department of Defense, he said.

Lawmakers heard that a joint executive committee doesn’t even have an estimate for when it will make critical decisions on cost, schedule and risk mitigation.

It is time to ditch this arrangement, and have the White House cut the number of agencies in charge, he said.

Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, agreed, saying the triumvirate has become "an untenable partnership."

In future programs, while having each agency build and orbit its own satellite could be more expensive, that might be far preferable to attempting to have three agencies perform one job, some subcommittee members said.

To read the GAO report titled "Polar-Orbiting Satellites: With Costs Increasing and Data Continuity at Risk, Improvements Needed in Tri-agency Decision Making" in full, please go to

http://www.gao.gov on the Web.