Rejoinder on Recent Satnews Stories on NPOESS and MEASAT 1R Satellite Delay
Los Angeles, Calif. June 18, 2007 - Satnews Daily - Last week, we published two stories on June 11—one on the NPOESS program entitled “U.S. Cedes to Europe Leadership Role in Monitoring Global Warming via Satellite” and “MEASAT To Launch Fourth Satellite.”
In the interest of balance, we would like to provide some additional information on these articles that were not available to us at the time of writing. In the MEASAT story which dealt wit h the delays in the launch of the MEASAT-1R satellite, MEASAT’s CEO Paul Brown-Kenyon clarifies that the delays were caused not by “shortage of components for the satellite, but a delay in the launch vehicle availability.” The article originally attributed the delay to the manufacturer of the satellite.
The story on the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environment Satellite System (NPOESS) elicited a response from Sally Koris from Northrop Grumman Space Technology—the prime contractor for the system. The article reported on the possibility of Europe assuming a larger role in monitoring global warming due to the scaling down of the US’ NPOESS program. This story was widely covered in other media. In response Koris said “The NPOESS system configuration was established by the Defense Department Acquisition Decision Memorandum (ADM) through the Nunn-McCurdy Certification issued on June 5, 2006. The Administration is not planning additional de-scoping of the system. The Administration is evaluating options to re-establish capacity towards a total climate monitoring system. Options include expanding NPOESS’ current capacity by re-manifesting sensors. The current configuration of NPOESS has been assessed to contribute to 14 of the 26 essential climate variables on the atmosphere, oceans and land masses.”
In a background provided to Satnews by Northop Grumman on the NPOESS program, it mentioned that “NPOESS has been on schedule and on cost for the past 18 months. Technical progress has included completion of development of the ground command and control segment for NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP), a risk reduction mission for NPOESS; completion of four out of five planned iterations on the ground mission data processing software; completion of testing on the Visible Infrared Imaging Sensor (VIIRS) engineering development model (EDU) and most subsystem testing on the VIIRS flight unit; integration of sensor hardware on the NPP satellite bus; and completion of key NPP spacecraft temperature and ambient tests. Also initial versions of all the end-product environmental data record (EDR) algorithms have been developed.”
“NPOESS is complex system, with multiple satellites, multiple sensors, a
globally distributed ground receive system, and four data processing central sites that comprise the processing segment. Northrop Grumman and its teammates have worked very hard to identify and correct previous mistakes, overcome technical challenges inherent in complex systems such as NPOESS, and have made major changes to management teams and processes. We believe these changes will make it possible to deal effectively with future challenges,” Northrop Grumman added.
