Our Weather Satellites Are Dying

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that some experts say it is almost certain that the U.S. will soon face a year or more without crucial weather satellites that provide invaluable data for predicting storm tracks. This is because the existing polar satellites are nearing or beyond their life expectancies, and the launching of the next replacement, known as JPSS-1, has slipped until early 2017. Polar satellites provide 84 percent of the data used in the main American computer model tracking the course of Hurricane Sandy, which at first was expected to amble away harmlessly, but now appears poised to strike the mid-Atlantic states. The mismanagement of the $13 billion program to build the next generation weather satellites was recently described as a 'national embarrassment' by a top official of the Commerce Department. A launch mishap or early on-orbit failure of JPSS 1 could lead to a data gap of more than 5 years. The second JPSS satellite — JPSS 2 — is not scheduled for launch until 2022. 'There is no more critical strategic issue for our weather satellite programs than the risk of gaps in satellite coverage,' writes Jane Lubchenco, the under-secretary responsible for the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency. 'This dysfunctional program that had become a national embarrassment due to chronic management problems.' As a aside, I know from personal experience that this isn't the first time NOAA has been in this situation. 'In 1992 NOAA's GOES weather satellites were at the end of their useful lives and could have failed at any time,' I wrote as a project manager for AlliedSignal at that time. 'So NOAA made an agreement with the government of Germany to borrow a Meteosat Weather Satellite as a backup and drift it over from Europe to provide weather coverage for the US's Eastern seaboard in the event of an early GOES failure.'"

Comments

Re:Next generation?

[LaminatorX]

The new weather satalites will access The Cloud to speed deployment and reduce support costs.

We the people of germany.

[Anonymous Coward]

are on the one side glad to support our allies on our axis, but must decline the shipment of data that might harm the religious feelings of many american citizens.

Weather is made by god, man shall not try to understand gods ways, because this would make man a god. Thus weather shall not be understood by the god fearing american people that replace a theory like evolution or the big bang theory by simpler means; creative design and the not so "creative beginning".

A just kidding, take as much data as you need, because if you fear for your life you also sell your soul, aren't you ?

Re:We the people of germany.

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Although German engineers excel at terrestrial technology, like BMW and Porsche, their space technology has not been nurtured. After the war, the Russians took their German scientists, to build their Russian space program, and the US took their German scientists, to build their US space program. Anyone who was left over in Germany was like the nerdy kid to get picked last for a team in school sports.

In fact, the last German weather satellite was a total failure. It was called Satelliten Chefkoch Hauptleitungsabzweigklemme Überwachungstechnik Leitungsschutzschalter Teleauskunft Zeitverschiebung, or SCHULTZ for short. When queried about the weather, it simply replied:

"I see NOTHING . . . NOTHING!"