GAO - 3-Year Gap In Weather, Climate Satellite Coverage Starts In 2007

[hatrack]

U.S. Government Accountability Office report on a new polar-orbiting environmental satellite program has concluded that cost overruns and procedural difficulties could create a gap in important national weather data derived from the satellites that could last at least three years, beginning in late 2007.

The report, undertaken at the request of the Senate Commerce subcommittee on disaster prevention and prediction, found that the program's cost has risen to $10 billion and scheduled launches have been delayed up to three years. These circumstances have triggered the need for what the GAO (formerly the General Accounting Office) report calls "difficult decisions about the program's direction and capabilities."

Polar-orbiting environmental satellites provide data and images used by weather forecasters, climatologists and the U.S. military to map and monitor changes in weather, climate, the oceans and the environment. The satellites are critical to long-term weather prediction, including advance forecasts of hurricane paths and intensity.

The current U.S. program comprises two satellite systems - one operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and one by the Department of Defense - as well as supporting ground stations and four central data processing centers. The new program, called the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS, is supposed to replace the two systems with a single, state-of-the-art environment-monitoring satellite network.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/GAO_Report_Foresees_Gap_In_Weather_Satellite_Coverage.html

[walkon]

1. Brilliant!

[phantom power]

2. Oh fucking hell. I can't bear the stupidity.

:banghead: