Senate Appropriators Want DOD To Start Over on Weather Satellite Program

Saying they did not want “to repeat the costly mistakes of the NPOESS program,” Senate appropriators told the Department of Defense (DOD) to terminate the Defense Weather Satellite System (DWSS) and start over.

DWSS is DOD’s part of the restructured National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). It was created when the White House decided to end NPOESS — a joint program among DOD, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and NASA — and return to past practice of having separate weather satellites for the civil and military sectors. NOAA and NASA are now trying to win support for their civil system, the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), while DOD is trying to restructure its part of NPOESS into DWSS. NPOESS was being acquired through DOD and DOD holds the contract with Northop Grumman.

The Senate Appropriations Committee made their unhappiness with this arrangement clear in its report (S. Rept. 112-77) on its version of the FY2012 defense appropriations bill (H.R. 2219). The report was released yesterday.

Saying the DWSS program “remains challenged by a difficult and confusing set of management issues,” the committee zeroed the $445 million request and replaced it with $250 million for “continued common sensor development, as well as requirements definition and source selection activities for a full and open competition for a follow-on program.”

It also provided $150 million to cover termination liability costs for ending the Northrop Grumman contract.

In its version of the FY2012 defense appropriations bill, the House halved the DWSS request. The House Appropriations Committee’s report on the bill (H. Rept. 112-110) says only that the cut was due to “excess to need — poor justification.”