NOAA Asks To Move $90M Into Cash-strapped JPSS

Posted on July 19, 2011

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on June
14 asked Congress to approve a revised 2011 spending plan that would shift $90
million lawmakers approved for otheragency projects to a new polar-orbiting
weather satellite program.

NOAA proposes to boost spending on the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) to
$471.9 million this year and pay for the increase in part by cutting spending on several
of its other satellite programs, according to a copy of NOAA's 2011 operating
plan obtained by Space News.

Among the space-related cuts outlined in NOAA's operating plan is a $17 million
reduction to the agency's $58 million budget for operating its fleet of geostationary
weather satellites; a $5 million reduction the Geostationary Operational
Environmental Satellite R-series program; and a $13 million cut to the Comprehensive
Large Array Data Stewardship System, leaving just $5.4 million for that project.
No money would be spent in 2011 on the COSMIC-2 mission being developed
with Taiwan or on the Deep Space Climate Observatory.

Until last year, NOAA had been contributing half of the fimding for the National
Polar-orbiting Operational Satellite System (NPOESS) that was being jointly
developed with the Defense Department. The White House canceled that program
and directed NOAA to pursue a civil weather satellite system, with NASA serving
as the acquisition agent.

NOAA was provided with $382 million for its share of NPOESS in 2010 and requested
$1.06 billion for JPSS in 2011. Congress was unable to pass any ofthe 12
government spending bills for 2011, and instead funded the federal government
with an all-in-one spending bill that held most agencies to 2010 funding levels.
As a result, NOAA was left with a $678 million shortfall that it says has already
delayed the launch of the firstJPSS spacecraft by at least a year.