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

NBC / weather channel / comcast has deep pocket

[Joe_Dragon]

NBC / weather channel / comcast has deep pockets may they can pay for one.

Re:NBC / weather channel / comcast has deep pocket

[fustakrakich]

Yeah, and put all the data behind a paywall... Not a good idea.

Re:NBC / weather channel / comcast has deep pocket

[hey!]

Why would they? When they can get the government to do it.

Why would they launch their own satellites if the government did NOT do it for them? Look, they've done well repackaging the text data you've always been able to get from NOAA. They take the raw imagery, doll it up and spin it around in various eye-watering, stomach-churning ways. They're in the data presentation business, not the data production business.

Sure, being the only organization that can fill in the data gap would be a competitive advantage, but that requires investment, and in general the investment in substance by information-media has dropped through the floor. News outfits cutting back on things like foreign bureaues and local reporters and shifting their content to opinion; and you expect them to pick up the 655 million dollars it takes to field the JPSS-1 and the 12.6 *billion* of the entire program?

What the American government really seems to do is funnel tax payers money into companies.

Well, sure. If you're going to have a space program, it's either funnel taxpayers' money into companies or into programs staffed by government workers. The question shouldn't be where the money ends up, it should be value for money. A decade of accurate storm tracking is easily worth 12 billion bucks to America as a whole; it's just not worth 12 billion to any single private entity.

Re:NBC / weather channel / comcast has deep pocket

[Rockoon]

Why would it take that news outfit $12 billion? Just because it costs government a lot, doesn't mean that it should cost a private entity the same.

I would hope that if it costs $13 billion for some weather satellites, that nobody is foolish enough to pay it. Well, of course the government was that foolish.. but hey.

This works out to a years income for 288,888 people at the median ($45K) level. No, not the taxes they pay.. THEIR ENTIRE INCOME.

Or, with that kind of money you can order the production a whopping 260,000 commercial drones at $50,000 per unit. You can *lose* 71 commercial drones per day for 10 years and still not match the cost of these new weather satellites.

I am amazed at how often the cost that these projects consume doesnt greatly offend peoples senses. $10 billion costs $77 per household. Money like that adds up quickly.. a couple hundred projects like that and you've got the american government in a nutshell.

The Federal Acquisitions System is Broken

[Anonymous Coward]

There are so many "checks and balances" in the system, and so much risk aversion, that the system can not perform. No program manager is ever rewarded for taking a risk, or succeeding, so the best ones are the ones who can redirect blame and reduce risk. Same with the contracting and finance people, and to no small extent, the government engineers. Worse, those who are competent flee the government, leaving us with a population that's not good or representative of their fields at large. I wasn't given the option to enter it (military orders) but I'm leaving as soon as I can, because it's a dead end, morally, emotionally and professionally.

Re:Next generation?

[TubeSteak]

Why do we need "next generation" satellites? Why not build more of the same, which apparently have worked adequately for quite a while?

Car Analogy Warning: When fuel is your biggest cost, the price difference between launching a Model-T into orbit isn't really that relevant compared to launching a ferrari.

There's also the whole "technology improving" thing.
Imagine the current state of science if we were only using microscopes that "have worked adequately for quite a while"
Heck, feel free to compare and contrast a 1999 cell phone with one made in 2010.

Re:Your one party system has failed you

[jhoegl]

I agree... we should let corporations tell us when weather is bad.
Because paying for information to be told a tornado is coming is a good idea.
Paying to be told a hurricane is coming is a good idea.
Preventing loss of life should be secondary to profits.
Also, none of that is bribing to save lives, its just good business.

If only we were less short sighted than profits and more caring about people. But fuck it, PROFITS!

Re:This is what you get...

[couchslug]

"...when you over-spend on military interventions and bullying the world, and under-spend on useful tech."

Where do you think SATELLITE technology and the ability to LAUNCH them came from? The Peaceful Space Tech Fairie?

best and brightest

[nurb432]

Or at least ones that know their limitations and have good advisors to turn to when they hit those limits so they can make informed decisions.

Not eveyone knows everything.

Re:Your one party system has failed you

[Iamthecheese]

It's a brilliant example of one category of tragedy of the commons. The dollars spent are easily seen and tracked. The dollars saved are invisible.