Obama Administration Isn’t Seizing Control Of NPOESS To Fix Problems, Lawmakers Say

The Senate Appropriations Committee expressed exasperation with the long-troubled National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS, but provided it with full funding for the upcoming fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010.

Senators complained the Obama administration has failed to provide "long-term, realistic budget projections," while also failing to provide strong leadership over the program.

Overall, the committee expressed a "lack of confidence in the management of this important program."

While a review team recently predicted that the NPOESS program would have "a low probability of success," the Obama administration hasn’t responded to any recommendations from that review, the Senate panel noted as it completed work on an appropriations bill for NASA and NOAA for fiscal 2010. The criticisms leveled against NPOESS were contained in a report accompanying the appropriations bill. (Please see separate stories in this issue.)

Lawmakers long have condemned the NPOESS program for soaring costs that far exceed initial estimates, and for delays that mean the satellites may not be in orbit and observing Earth and its climate in time to avoid an interruption that would damage continuity of data gathered over decades. Too, some sensors were removed from the satellite, meaning that the spacecraft won’t gather some needed information, leading to further legislative criticism. So this is far from the first time NPOESS has been hit with searing congressional castigation. (Please see full stories in Space & Missile Defense Report, Monday, June 15, and Monday, June 22, 2009.)

The Senate committee noted unhappily that the administration has said management changes in NPOESS are unlikely until after Congress passes the fiscal 2010 budget.

While the senators voted to fully fund NPOESS at $382.2 million in fiscal 2010, the report predicted that "the program’s long-term projections for success are dubious." As well, the committee ripped the Obama administration for not taking a proactive, hands-on approach and seizing control of the troubled situation.

If NPOESS "is to ultimately achieve its mission, the administration needs to disengage from its auto-pilot management style, start making responsible decisions and regain control of this unwieldy program," the committee asserted.

One problem with NPOESS, cited at many congressional hearings in recent years, is that it is run by a triad of government agencies: NOAA, NASA and the Department of Defense (DOD).

Some lawmakers say the three agencies don’t work as one, and no one person has powers to make decisions, so that it now may be time to give one of the agencies the lead power to run the program, shifting the other agencies into an advisory or consultative role.

Similarly, the Senate Appropriations Committee ordered that 30 days after the NOAA/NASA appropriations bill is enacted, "the administration is directed to provide the committee with a new inter-agency management plan for NPOESS addressing all of the recommendations from every recent internal and external review" of the troubled NPOESS program.