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SBIRS and NPOESS update

Reuters reports that the ax has fallen on part of the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) program. To deal with the program’s extensive cost overruns, the Defense Department plans to reduce the number of satellites in the program from the original five to two, with an option for a third. (The sensor payloads to be included on classified satellites in elliptical orbit do not appear to be affected by the change.) The decision, announced in a letter from Kenneth Krieg, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, to Congress, also includes plans to develop what in essence would be a competing system: Overhead Non-Imaging Infrared (ONIR), to perform the same missile-warning tasks as SBIRS. “Given the continued importance to support strategic and theater missile warning and defense, I am convinced there is a need to develop a competitor capability, in parallel with the SBIRS program, to ensure the nation’s missile warning capacity is sustained,” Krieg wrote in the letter.

Meanwhile, a decision on the future of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), planned for this month, will be delayed, according to Aerospace Daily. NPOESS, which has suffered its share of cost overruns, has apparently triggered a Nunn-McCurdy recertification review as the cost of the program has grown in excess of 2005. The Air Force is not expected to formally notify Congress of the recertification review until January, giving the Pentagon until May to complete the review. Several options for the program are on the table, Space News reported in this week’s print edition, including dropping one instrument that has been driving some of the cost growth of the program.

1 comment to SBIRS and NPOESS update

  • Allen Thomson

    “The sensor payloads to be included on classified satellites in elliptical orbit do not appear to be affected by the change.”

    Apparently those two payloads have already been built and delivered for integration onto the satellites. It’s not totally clear when the satellites, believed to be next-generation ELINT collectors in the JUMPSEAT/TRUMPET line are going to be launched.