Budget Cutbacks For NOAA Delaying Mulltiple Earth- And Ice-Monitoring Satellites By 1-2 Years

[hatrack]

EDIT

Scientists have warned for years that successive rounds of spending cuts have taken their toll on the nation's constellation of Earth-observing satellites. The National Academy of Sciences warned in 2007 that the United States' ability to monitor Earth from space was "at great risk" as the current stable of satellites aged and their replacements were delayed or shelved.

The spending deal hammered out earlier this month by House Republicans, Senate Democrats and the White House adds to that pain. This year's budget chopped the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's purse to $4.6 billion for fiscal 2011, $140 million less than the agency received in the 2010 budget cycle. That has forced the agency to delay the launch of Jason-3, a joint mission with the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites to monitor sea level rise, by one year.

"It is impacted by the FY '11 budget decision," said Mary Kicza, NOAA's assistant administrator for satellite and information services. "The launch has slipped to 2014."

The spending cuts have also scrambled launch plans for the agency's Joint Polar Satellite System, a series of probes that will supply information for weather and climate forecasts. The launch of the program's first satellite, JPSS-1, will be delayed by at least 18 months beyond the original 2016 target.

That will leave a gap in some weather and climate records, creating more difficulties for environmental forecasts, severe storm warnings and search-and-rescue operations. "Right now, we have satellites in orbit," Kicza said. "They are producing important measurements that our modelers are using to provide two-to-five-day weather forecasts and long-term climate forecasts. On the face of things, things don't look broken. But it takes many years to field these systems -- for a complex satellite, on average, it's six to eight years. So you need to make investments now to ensure you don't have a gap in the future."

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/05/04/04climatewire-climate-satellite-programs-scarred-in-budget-76532.html

[n2doc]

1. Gotta pay for all those cruise missiles we shot at Libya... n/t

[Nihil]

7. You got it.

D'ya think money grows on trees or somethin'?

Speakin' of trees, ain't it funny how they're goin' all brown and dead-like?

:argh:

[aquart]

2. Or we could tax the rich and use the money to save the planet.

[phantom power]

3. Awesome -- as long as we aren't watching, it's not happening!

Right?

[Vinnie From Indy]

4. This is simply the oil companies version of "Corexit" for the skies.

If people cannot see it, it is harder to make a fuss. Delaying these satellites is just a small effort to hide the truth about fossil fuels and global warming. The last thing the Koch Bros and others with a huge stake in denying global warming want is people to have pictures of and scientific data on the melting polar caps. You can bet that is the reason these programs are being slow walked or killed.

[northoftheborder]

5. shortsighted stupidity

[XemaSab]

6. Slower than expected?

:P