I did not get a chance to watch yesterday’s House Science Committee hearing on the troubled NPOESS satellite program, but it was pretty clear from both the post-hearing press releases by the full committee and the Democratic leadership that no one is very pleased about the cost overruns and schedule delays this program has encountered. In particular, members complained that NOAA “has withheld information in the past” about the program, a problem NOAA administrator Conrad Lautenbacher promised to rectify. As David Powner of the GAO said at the hearing, “In summary, NPOESS is a program in crisis.” It sounds a bit melodramatic, but when a program that was once forecast to cost $6.5 billion is now expected by the GAO to reach $9.7 billion, “crisis” may not be too strong of a word.
Aerospace Daily reports today that officials from NOAA, NASA, and the Air Force plan to meet November 22 to “discuss options for proceeding” with NPOESS. Those options weren’t discussed, although Lautenbacher said simply spending more money in the short term might not solve the problem. A final decision on the future of the program is expected in December.
Given the NPOESS problems, and the multiple Air Force problems, why would anyone trust Dr. Griffin’s cost estimates? I can think of some answers to that question — most of what Dr. Griffin is proposing is a lot lower tech than the overly complex designs proposed by everyone else — but Dr. Griffin needs to expect this question and have a good answer for it.
— Donald
I managed to listen to much of the hearing on C-Span Radio (yes, I am such a wonk that I actually listen to C-Span in my car).
A few comments:
-There was some disconnect between the members of Congress on whether or not they have gotten sufficient information on the problems with NPOESS. It seemed as if ranking minority member Bart Gordon and also Dana Rohrabacher were unhappy with the information they have received. House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, however, thanked all the speakers numerous times for how much they had cooperated. I have long had the suspicion that Boehlert and Gordon play good cop/bad cop during these hearings and coordinate their comments beforehand. But this seemed to be a case calling for bad cop/worse cop and that’s not what happened.
-There was also a disconnect about the funding issue. Several of the witnesses said that spending more money in the near term will not get the program back on its original schedule. Their explanation for this made some sense, but is probably complicated. However, the witness from Northrop-Grumman said that the best solution was to pay the full cost of the overruns for the program (i.e. send more money). I doubt that anybody was surprised at this suggestion from the contractor.
-The Northrop-Grumman witness said that his company has submitted a list of 30 possible options to the clients. These include virtually everything you can think of, including eliminating instruments, stretching out the schedule, etc.
-The contractor witness also said that 80% of the cost overrun is the fault of the sensor designers and said that they had essentially lied about how much “heritage” (i.e. experience) the subcontractors had with these sensor technologies. He said that many other parts of the program were on track and schedule, including the ground segment, spacecraft, etc.
-Rohrabacher vented plenty of anger and exasperation, which are justified. But one doubts that it will have much effect.
-NPOESS included a technology risk reduction strategy that has apparently failed miserably. Exactly how that happened went unexplained. This program was started back in 1994 or so, and one wonders why it will take nearly 18 years or more to get the spacecraft flying.
-Nobody asked what other Northrop-Grumman space programs might be over-budget and behind schedule. (There are several.) Rohrabacher did link the cost overruns to other USAF programs. One of the witnesses was the civilian in charge of Air Force military space programs, and it was clear that part of the context of this hearing was that USAF has no credibility at all when it comes to running space programs.
Nobody asked what other Northrop-Grumman space programs might be over-budget and behind schedule. (There are several.)
It can’t be good news for their prospects of winning CEV, even with Boeing on the team.
I would say, especially with Boeing on the team, since the Future Imaging Architecture is probably the greatest disaster of the lot.
— Donald
Well, maybe, but Boeing has more manned space heritage than any other bidder, at this point.
Gosh, with these kinds of cost overruns, we better be careful, or else we might find ourselves a nation with huge deficit spending someday.
Rohrabacher is the mean dog down the street who barks every night. It just doesn’t matter any more if he vents anger, even if there is some justification to it. For one thing, much of his anger is hypocritical.
IMO, the real problem with NPOESS is scope. Currently there are 15 different instruments on this satellite. They are trying to merge too many programs into a single satellite. Besides the weather instruments, 4 of these are derived from previous EOS missions and 1 of them is to replace landsat.
The only way this program is ever going to be back on track is to reduce the scope. Split the landsat into a free flyer b/c it was the stupidest idea in the world to put it on NPOESS in the first place as it broke the long chain of data that had been gathered over the past 30 years. Then take the 4 EOS instruments and put them also into their own bird. Then leave NPOESS to what it was suppose to be, an extremely important polar weather satellite.
On a side note, this is showing more the frustrations between NOAA and NASA in project control that is also very evident on GOES-R. How much longer till NOAA can just shove NASA aside run the whole show themselves?