From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Watchdog Report: Environmental Satellites and Risks to Data Collection Audio interview by GAO staff with David Powner, Director, Information Technology Associated Report Number: GAO-10-558 Released on: June 29, 2010 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the Government Accountability Office. It's June 29, 2010. Our nation relies on weather and climate data from environmental satellites to monitor and prepare for severe weather conditions. The most recent satellite program and development was an interagency effort until February 2010, when a presidential task force said that agencies should manage their satellites separately. A group led by Dave Powner, a Director in GAO's Information Technology team, recently examined the implications of separating the satellite program. GAO's Scott Golden sat down with Dave to learn more. [ Scott Golden: ] Can you give us a little background about the National Polar Orbiting Satellite System or NPOSS and the agencies involved? [ Dave Powner: ] Well the polar orbiting satellite programs actually started in the 1960s. There were two separate programs, one run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the other run by the Department of Defense. In 1994, there was a presidential decision directive to converge programs. The thinking here was that there was a lot of duplication across the two programs and also too, there was an opportunity to save significant funding. There was a contract awarded for a converged program, run by both National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Defense. If you fast forward 8 years, from 2002, what the picture looks like is a program that went from $7 billion to $15 billion, had 5-year delays in the planned launches and we have already spent $6 billion on this program over an 8-year period and have yet to launch a single satellite. So what happened was, earlier this year, in February of 2010, a White House-led task force led by the Office of Science and Technology Policy decided to go back to separate programs. So no longer do we have a converged program, but now we're going back to how it was prior to 1994. [ Scott Golden: ] So how's that transition process going and what challenges do the agencies face now that they have to develop separate satellite programs? [ Dave Powner: ] First of all, there's a number of transition risks that we have recently reported on and those transition risks tie to keeping key staff on board. So we have key staff leaving the program, that's a key transition risk. Another key transition risk would be negotiating or renegotiating contracts depending on what the future programs look like. And then on top of that, both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and DOD still need to define their programs. [ Scott Golden: ] Can you talk about the NPOSS preparatory project and its role in the transition? [ Dave Powner: ] Yes, well, NPOSS was originally scheduled to have six satellites and then with some of the restructuring, they scaled back to four. But there was always a planned demonstration satellite, called the NPOSS Preparatory Project. The demonstration satellite was to test some of the new technologies with some of the sensors that were being developed. And it was also going to fill a need for some of the climate monitoring that currently goes on with some of the NASA satellites. What happened was when the schedule started to slip, it quickly became apparent that they needed the demonstration satellite for operational purposes. What's going to happen is, in 2012 the final POSS reaches its...end of its life span and the demonstration satellite is planned to be launched the end of 2011, so we have about a year window that we need to get the demonstration satellite up to continue the continuity of the weather observations. [ Scott Golden: ] Will there be any immediate impact on the availability of weather information to people across the U.S.? [ Dave Powner: ] The final POSS satellite runs out of its life span at the end of 2012 and the demonstration satellite is to be launched right now a year prior, at the end of 2011. If there’s any slip in that schedule, and we're already aware there likely will be some slip in that schedule--there's some issues with the ground stations right now that they are dealing with--so we're awaiting to hear what that final slip will be, but we have about 12 months to play with. The other thing that you need to be concerned about too, in this situation, is if there's any failures with the launch, that also could affect the deployment of the demonstration satellite and whether it will be up in time to replace the final Polar Orbiting Satellite run by NOAA. [ Scott Golden: ] What recommendations, then, is GAO making to NOAA and DOD to ensure that there is continuity of weather data? [ Dave Powner: ] Well, in the near term, clearly there’s key transitions risks, in terms of keeping key staff on board, renegotiating contracts in a timely fashion; so we have a number of recommendations to effectively manage those transition risks. The second area is to expedite the planning of the separate programs that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and DOD will be running. In addition to those new recommendations, it's very important to keep in mind what with wrong with NPOSS historically. [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO's Web site at gao.gov, and be sure to tune in to the next edition of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from the congressional watchdog, the Government Accountability Office.