Later this morning a Delta 2 rocket is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying the Aquarius/SAC-D earth sciences satellite to orbit. That mission, designed to study ocean salinity and its effect on global climate, has not been immune to the delays that affect many satellite programs: it was originally planned to launch in September 2008. That delay is primarily an inconvenience for researchers, but delays in another, much larger earth observation program could have serious consequences for the country, one official warned last week.
Speaking at the Aerospace 2011: The Road Ahead conference held last Friday by Women in Aerospace in Arlington, Virginia, Kathryn Sullivan, a former astronaut and the new assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction at NOAA, said that delays in developing the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) caused by a lack of funding would lead to delays in the development of the first JPSS satellite to the point where a gap in weather data was increasingly likely as existing satellites reach the end of their lives.
“Current year funding for NOAA already assures that we’ll have about an 18-month delay in procuring JPSS-1,” she said. “When you run the satellite lifetimes and likely failure rates, that suggests we have a very high probability—over 70 percent—of having a gap in the polar data streams in the 2014 to 2016 timeframe.” She said that while spending plans for the remainder of fiscal year 2011 have yet to be finalized, it was unlikely that the program would get funding “significantly much north” of current projections. “It’s a pretty bleak picture,” she concluded.
So what are the implications of a gap in data from polar-orbiting weather satellites? She noted in her speech that the data from satellites in general, which account for 93 percent of the data used in forecast models, are essential to long-term forecasting. “Polar birds are absolutely vital to our two- to five-day forecasts for the entire Earth,” she said. “You now have to sample and measure the entire globe to make a two-plus-day forecast of any point on the globe.” In one example, she demonstrated the effect of such data on forecast models for the “Snowmageddon” winter storm that dropped over two feet of snow on Washington, DC, and elsewhere in the mid-Atlantic region of the US in February 2010. While forecast models that used the satellite closely predicted the actual snowfall amounts several days out, those without the data underestimated the amounts by about 50 percent.
If the data provided by polar-orbiting satellites is so crucial to weather forecasting, why is it so difficult to win funding to keep the JPSS satellites on schedule? Sullivan blamed the difficulties in getting a “ramp” of funding needed for development programs in general, and in the current fiscal environment in particular. “You end up with three years in a row where you have to provide a large slug of procurement dollars to keep the program moving on the pace you originally projected,” she said. “Washington doesn’t like budget ramps. Washington likes nice, easy increments.” Combine that with current pressures to reduce federal spending, she added, and “you have the perfect storm of misaligned fiscal biorhythms.” (One contributing factor she didn’t dwell upon was the predecessor of JPSS, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), which suffered delays and cost overruns so severe that last year the administration effectively cancelled it, breaking it into separate civil and defense programs.)
Sullivan said NOAA was working with the administration and Congress to try and secure sufficient funding for JPSS in future years’ budgets. “We’re working on a daily basis with OMB and the Congress to see what can be done to ameliorate this problem for the current year and set up for the years ahead in the next rounds of budgeting,” she said. She added that NOAA was also looking for potential commercial and international partnerships to address the potential data gap.
“We’re working so very hard to do everything we can to assure the continuity of this program, these observations,” she said. “It will be a sad and terrible day to retreat decades back on that service capability.”
Most news articles miss just how completely FUBAR this program is. It was started on 05 May 1994. It’s program office was stood up on 01 Oct 1994. Seventeen years and billions of dollars later, they have yet to even launch their prototype satellite. (NPP is finally slated to launch later this year.)
To blame the data gap on lower-than-expected future funding really takes….well, chutzpah in Kathy’s case.
Mike
Anytime the word “Environment” appears in legislation the GOP does its best to deny funding for fear that the cost of environmental damage might some how have to paid for. It’s crippled many attempts to get a grasp on where this planets environment is heading.
Part of that is now coming home to roost as weather tracking and forecasting abilities will soon begin to be affected. The costs of burying our heads in the sand is as great as the Republicans fear and the bill, like the deficit, will not go forever unpaid but will be extracted painfully.
“A “pretty bleak picture†for a weather satellite program”
Forecast: cloudy, eh.
Anytime the word “Environment†appears in legislation the GOP does its best to deny funding
Bet on it. The great recession and the malinvestment green energy have exposed the government/environmental industrial complex. It will be job one of the next president to crush their movement entirely. Why enable the enemies of freedom?
As for the dire consequences of losing polar satellite observations, I can tolerate 2 feet of snow even if only 1 foot is forecast.
amightywind wrote @ June 10th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
As for the dire consequences of losing polar satellite observations, I can tolerate 2 feet of snow even if only 1 foot is forecast.
and
The great recession and the malinvestment green energy have exposed the government/environmental industrial complex
You do know weather is important to industry like the oil companies in the gulf?
Government/Environmental Industrial Complex: This sounds like something from a James Bond movie. Beware G.E.I.C. OPEC is the one that worries me and they have a large observable influence on US Energy.
amightywind wrote @ June 10th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
“the malinvestment green energy…Why enable the enemies of freedom?”
Freedom from buying oil from Libya, Venezuela, and indirectly Iran, is bad? Wrong as usual Windy.
Last I looked, none of the companies that make green-tech/clean-tech are on the terrorist watch lists, or need to be embargoed to keep them from doing bad things.
“I can tolerate 2 feet of snow even if only 1 foot is forecast.”
Of course you’re completely oblivious to the economic costs that come from not having valid weather predictions. Having one day less of valid forecasting means $Millions spent needlessly because cities and businesses have to be prepared just in case.
As Benjamin Franklin was famous for saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” You should heed his advice.
sftommy wrote:
Anytime the word “Environment†appears in legislation the GOP does its best to deny funding for fear that the cost of environmental damage might some how have to paid for. It’s crippled many attempts to get a grasp on where this planets environment is heading.
Here we have a program that’s been screwed up since early in the Clinton administration, and you’re blaming Republicans for its problems? Sheesh!
And then amightywind comes out against weather forecasting. Oh brother!
OK, guys, I think this proves he’s just a moby.
Either that or its “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…”
Mike
G’day,
An obvious question, why was such an advanced satellite considered in the first place? Couldn’t they have build one with elocutionary advances over the previous generation? Thats what happens with commercial communication satellites.
ta
Ralph
Accurate forecasting of both weather (short-term) and climate (long-term) saves lives in planning for drought, flood and crop losses, for Florida it is crical in both long-term and immediate hurricane prediction.
The problems in the weather satellite program were created by both parties and by NASA leadership through ignoring practical goals. I see this as symptomatic of the evolution of NASA from the technocratic, unexciting but useful NACA to a multibillion dollar agency that exists primarily to respond to Presidential fantasies.
At the present time the good of the Nation obviously requires NASA, if it has any sense of decency, to jettison the sorry remains of Constellation and use the billions that would be freed up to hire competent managers who can put the weather satellite program back on track.
The situation is made worse by the move by the two Representatives from Kennedy Space Center area, Sandy Adams and Bill Posey, to eliminate all NASA climate research, on the grounds that NASA “believes in” global warming, which they think is a liberal plot. The irony is that most KSC workers voted for them.
This program is all FUBAR because, from the beginning, there wasn’t enough funding individually at NOAA, or DoD for anyone of these entities to go it alone. So in classic ‘strategic partnering’ mode, the three agencies created a monster programmatic organization. And since all these government entities have been trained in dysfunctional operations, by Congress – the master of dysfunctional operations – the program floundered and floundered and floundered. JPSS, rising from the ashes of the colossal failure, is an attempt to copy the very successful GOES model of NOAA/NASA partnership. However, in classic Congressional dysfunction, gaps in weather data 5 years from now, don’t impact re-election in 2012; hence the shoulder shrug of reduced budgets.
After all this time the satellite will never be built anyway since we’re in a Rapturous GOPer cycle.
Maybe if the GOP start blaming the Chinese for evil weather control patterns….?
@ dad2059 wrote @ June 11th, 2011 at 9:29 am
“Maybe if the GOP start blaming the Chinese for evil weather control patterns….?”
Yep. Imagine that from the Moon!!!!
Not bad, not bad at all.
Anyone here seen any leaks yet on the SLS proposal? I have been looking daily and thought I would see something….. Seems like they would learn their lesson and fly out rumors first to gauge reaction before putting out anything official…… Based on believing the final recommendation is due by the end of this month
amightywind wrote @ June 10th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
“As for the dire consequences of losing polar satellite observations, I can tolerate 2 feet of snow even if only 1 foot is forecast.”
yes another keen mind of the right wing making another thoughtful statement.
The problem with the GOP right wing is that beyond an individual perspective most of the individual “keen minds” dont understand or really care to understand much.
The world is bigger then you Wind, (or me or any other individual) and the sum total of the nations activities is larger then any individual. You might not care about the difference but processes and things that you or others do care about are impacted by the difference and the lack of precise (or as precise as possible) WX information.
If one foot is forecast then the folks at the airport snow removal teams act one way. If it is two feet they act another…that is just one example.
You folks, the right wing of the GOP are doing a lot of harm to the Country that you folks claim to be the super patriots of. RGO
This kind of programming deserves funding. Weather satellite and Earth sciences research were at the forefront of the space program from its beginning. Ignoring the sciences and distorting data is very GOP. Witness Bill O’Reilly- ‘tide goes in; tide goes out. God’s will.’
@Michael Kent
“And then amightywind comes out against weather forecasting. Oh brother!”
I’ve been wondering about amighty – does he actually believe what he says? I’m starting to think he might be performance art.
You do know weather is important to industry like the oil companies in the gulf?
Hurricanes are accurately tracked from high orbit. Sadly it looks like NASA has recently misallocated funds to study ocean salinity while NOAA goes begging.
The problem with the GOP right wing is that beyond an individual perspective most of the individual “keen minds†dont understand or really care to understand much.
An enlightened self interest is the cornerstone of the American economy. We care about the ‘world at large’ to the extent it serves this interest. Your’s is the usual spiel from the left. The GOP is somehow dumb for rejecting the global warming con. I do know we are in the third year of their ‘smart’ policies and the nation is in a horrible malaise. The emperor has no clothes.
GOPer’s, as a generalization, with respect to Earth Science, are ‘head in the sander’s” NASA does a lot of science from space; NOAA does a lot of Earth Observing from space; While other galaxies and planets and blackholes, and such are interesting and even exciting, there is only one planet whose health I care about, and that’s the one I live on, my kids live on, and that’s good ole Earth.
Not sure why GOPer’s are such anti Earth Science, Earth Observation. Stupid of them to let whatever fears they have about what we’d learn from a robust Earth Science program get in the way of funding such valuable endeavors.
“Sadly it looks like NASA has recently misallocated funds to study ocean salinity while NOAA goes begging.”
As usual, windy makes another idiotic statement. NOAA gets Aquarius data and has people on the science team. NOAA doesn’t deal with R&D, they only use instruments that are proven. NASA, as part of its charter, performs the R&D of new remote sensing instruments.
NOAA isn’t doing any begging, the funds are rightfully allocate. What is misallocated is windy’s devotion to wrongly interpret NASA’s purpose and charter.
amightywind wrote @ June 11th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
“An enlightened self interest is the cornerstone of the American economy. ”
I dont much like that statement and dont think it is historically accurate except for narrow slices of the economy; but even if it were accurate then you have failed the test you set out.
Hurricanes can be traced by GEO birds, but their sensors are not fine enough to develop the data on “where” they will be going. IE the GEO birds can find where they are but only the data from airplanes and Polar birds can find the data that allows some notion of where they are going to be pushed with greater and greater accuracy.
That you do not know this, that you assume that because “you” know something means you know more then the folks who are actual experts on it…fails the test of “enlightenment” that you put out.
I dont know if man made or affected climate change is a reality; but I do keep an open mind and am at least willing to collect data to find out. People like you, when I was a child kept arguing that all the “pollution controls on cars” were really meaningless. But I recall when we did not have them and had leaded gas and the skies in Houston were well “less” almost on a daily basis; and while we still get the occasionally inversion that makes things really bad; not so much since we did move to affect the changes we as humans were having on the environment
It goes farther then the environment. Whittington whose sole knowledge of the military comes from his fantasy shows was one of the guys who thought we could take and hold Iraq with 50,000 people. He thought that because he had been told to think that by the fools who Rumsfeld hired, who like him only played at knowing about the military.
It doesnt take to much to read your “enlightened” post on space policy to figure out that you are sort of in the “make it up as you go” theory as well. I still laugh at the notions of the “Falcon 9 upper stage going into the Atlantic”. even while the boost phase was underway.
People like you think that if you say it long enough it takes on truth. Or if you can redo Wiki then Paul Revere did really ride to warn the British.
We have as a nation ha dpeople like you around for a long time, and once again you folks are getting some time in the spotlight; but it will only be when we dump you that at some point we will grow as a nation again. That day is coming. RGO
Oler – “People like you think that if you say it long enough it takes on truth. Or if you can redo Wiki then Paul Revere did really ride to warn the British.
We have as a nation ha dpeople like you around for a long time, and once again you folks are getting some time in the spotlight; but it will only be when we dump you that at some point we will grow as a nation again. That day is coming. RGO”
As usual, you don’t really know what you are talking about:
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/06/137011636/how-accurate-were-palins-comments-on-paul-revere
While this reference is off-topic in and of itself, it demonstrates your usual lack of knowledge and typical slander of others that hold differing opinions, accusations that you are never able to back up with facts.
A reminder that Ms. Palin’s comments about Mr. Revere are off topic for this post. Please limit your discussion to topics related to this post. Thank you for your cooperation.
NPOESS looks like a classic requirements death spiral that afflicts most “joint” programs (think JSF). It came out of squashing together a civil and military satellite program that had somewhat overlapping requirements. That looks efficient on paper but the conjoined program has more requirements than any of the predecessor programs.
Additional requirements don’t add linearly. They open the program to unexpected interactions between requirements, for example thermal and EMI incompatibilities between instruments. It also adds schedule risk – delays on one sensor holds back the launch of every other sensor.
As I understand the revised policy, the NPOESS partnership is being resolved and civil and defense parts are being separated again, which would be a belated step in the right direction.