buglerbilly
12-03-10, 03:28 AM
By william matthews
Published: 11 Mar 2010 15:40
After years of production delays aggravated by cost overruns and punctuated by capabilities cuts, military satellite programs appear poised for a few positives this year.
Four "first of" satellites are scheduled to be launched in 2010, said Gary Payton, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space programs:
■ The first Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications satellite.
■ The first Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite.
■ The first new-generation Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite.
■ And the first Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) satellite.
"It appears that space programs have finally turned the corner," said Sen. Ben Nelson, chairman of the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee.
Well, that's one way to look at it. But the Government Accountability Office has a different perspective.
The four launches planned for this year come only after years of enormous cost increases, delivery delays, design problems and oversight and management weaknesses, the GAO reported to Nelson's subcommittee March 10.
AEHF, for example, is five years behind schedule now, the GAO says. An AEHF satellite is scheduled to be launched in September. A $5.6 billion program when it began in 2001, AEHF now will cost about twice that much and yield one less satellite, the GAO reported.
The new global positioning system satellite, GPS IIF, is 3½ years late and will cost $1.7 billion instead of the $730 million agreed upon when work on it began a decade ago, the GAO said.
SBSS has morphed from an $885 million program to a $3 billion behemoth that is three years late and one satellite short.
ORS 1, the first in a class of operationally responsive satellites that are supposed to be ready to pop promptly into space to meet current military needs, is taking 24 months to build and launch.
And those are just the four satellites the Air Force is touting as 2010 successes.
There is also the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), a group of four infrared satellites designed to warn of missile launches and perform other reconnaissance operations. This 1996 program has ballooned from about $ 2 billion to more than $13.6 billion today. A Lockheed Martin-Northrop Grumman effort, SBIRS is eight years late. Two satellites have been launched so far, but hardware defects have since been discovered on the first one, the GAO said.
And there's MUOS, the Navy's mobile user objective system, an array of five communications satellites that are intended to supply the U.S. military with cell phone-like communications capabilities around the world.
MUOS is now 21 months late, creating the possibility for communications degradation after next January, the GAO said. MUOS costs, though, have fallen slightly. They remain in the $1 billion neighborhood.
It took relatively rare action by the Defense Department to get to this relatively improved state in its satellite programs: The department killed programs that were performing even worse, said Cristina Chaplain, GAO's director of acquisition and sourcing management.
A year ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pulled the plug on TSAT, the transformational communications satellite. Air Force officials said the program's $26 billion price tag and technical complexity was led to its downfall. That the 6-year-old program was already four years late didn't help.
That and other cancellations "alleviated competition for funding and may have allowed the Defense Department to focus on fixing problems and implementing reforms rather than taking on new, complex and potentially higher-risk efforts," Chaplain said.
Improvements to the satellite programs have not solved all of the military's woes with space.
An emerging problem is rising launch costs. The coming retirement of U.S. space shuttles this year and the proposed cancellation of Constellation program, the shuttles' follow-on, seem certain to push launch costs up, said Sen. David Vitter, R-La.
With NASA cutting back as a buyer of solid rocket motors and other propulsion systems, the cost of those systems could double, Payton said.
Other factors are also pushing launch costs up. The supply of rockets already in inventory is being depleted, meaning that new ones will have to be bought. But fewer annual buys are pushing costs up, Payton said.
There are fewer commercial customers, which is causing the subcontractor business base to deteriorate, and that is pushing costs up.
On the other hand, President Barack Obama's proposal in the 2011 budget to rely more on commercial vendors to launch satellites and eventually astronauts into space, could spark new research and development into liquid fuel engines, said Gen. Robert Kehler, chief of the Air Force Space Command. That could be "a good opportunity" for the Air Force, he said.
Published: 11 Mar 2010 15:40
After years of production delays aggravated by cost overruns and punctuated by capabilities cuts, military satellite programs appear poised for a few positives this year.
Four "first of" satellites are scheduled to be launched in 2010, said Gary Payton, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space programs:
■ The first Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications satellite.
■ The first Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite.
■ The first new-generation Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite.
■ And the first Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) satellite.
"It appears that space programs have finally turned the corner," said Sen. Ben Nelson, chairman of the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee.
Well, that's one way to look at it. But the Government Accountability Office has a different perspective.
The four launches planned for this year come only after years of enormous cost increases, delivery delays, design problems and oversight and management weaknesses, the GAO reported to Nelson's subcommittee March 10.
AEHF, for example, is five years behind schedule now, the GAO says. An AEHF satellite is scheduled to be launched in September. A $5.6 billion program when it began in 2001, AEHF now will cost about twice that much and yield one less satellite, the GAO reported.
The new global positioning system satellite, GPS IIF, is 3½ years late and will cost $1.7 billion instead of the $730 million agreed upon when work on it began a decade ago, the GAO said.
SBSS has morphed from an $885 million program to a $3 billion behemoth that is three years late and one satellite short.
ORS 1, the first in a class of operationally responsive satellites that are supposed to be ready to pop promptly into space to meet current military needs, is taking 24 months to build and launch.
And those are just the four satellites the Air Force is touting as 2010 successes.
There is also the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), a group of four infrared satellites designed to warn of missile launches and perform other reconnaissance operations. This 1996 program has ballooned from about $ 2 billion to more than $13.6 billion today. A Lockheed Martin-Northrop Grumman effort, SBIRS is eight years late. Two satellites have been launched so far, but hardware defects have since been discovered on the first one, the GAO said.
And there's MUOS, the Navy's mobile user objective system, an array of five communications satellites that are intended to supply the U.S. military with cell phone-like communications capabilities around the world.
MUOS is now 21 months late, creating the possibility for communications degradation after next January, the GAO said. MUOS costs, though, have fallen slightly. They remain in the $1 billion neighborhood.
It took relatively rare action by the Defense Department to get to this relatively improved state in its satellite programs: The department killed programs that were performing even worse, said Cristina Chaplain, GAO's director of acquisition and sourcing management.
A year ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pulled the plug on TSAT, the transformational communications satellite. Air Force officials said the program's $26 billion price tag and technical complexity was led to its downfall. That the 6-year-old program was already four years late didn't help.
That and other cancellations "alleviated competition for funding and may have allowed the Defense Department to focus on fixing problems and implementing reforms rather than taking on new, complex and potentially higher-risk efforts," Chaplain said.
Improvements to the satellite programs have not solved all of the military's woes with space.
An emerging problem is rising launch costs. The coming retirement of U.S. space shuttles this year and the proposed cancellation of Constellation program, the shuttles' follow-on, seem certain to push launch costs up, said Sen. David Vitter, R-La.
With NASA cutting back as a buyer of solid rocket motors and other propulsion systems, the cost of those systems could double, Payton said.
Other factors are also pushing launch costs up. The supply of rockets already in inventory is being depleted, meaning that new ones will have to be bought. But fewer annual buys are pushing costs up, Payton said.
There are fewer commercial customers, which is causing the subcontractor business base to deteriorate, and that is pushing costs up.
On the other hand, President Barack Obama's proposal in the 2011 budget to rely more on commercial vendors to launch satellites and eventually astronauts into space, could spark new research and development into liquid fuel engines, said Gen. Robert Kehler, chief of the Air Force Space Command. That could be "a good opportunity" for the Air Force, he said.