In testimony before the Senate Committee on Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces March 4, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that although DOD has made strides in addressing cost overruns and delays in space acquisitions, it continues to face persistent problems.

"The majority of major acquisition programs in DOD's space portfolio have experienced problems, resulting in cost growth close to or exceeding 100 percent on some programs," Cristina Chaplain, GAO's director of acquisition and sourcing management, said in her statement.

GAO cited five notable programs that have incurred "substantial cost growth and schedule delays": the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) communications satellite, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS), the Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) and the Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF program.

The causes of acquisition problems in space programs are myriad and include the fact that weapons programs are "incentivized to produce and use optimistic cost and schedule estimates in order to successfully compete for funding," the report said. "We have also found that DOD starts its space programs too early ... before it has assurance that the capabilities it is pursuing can be achieved within available resources and time constraints."

Acquisition problems also can be linked to inadequate contracting strategy, contract and program management weaknesses, the loss of technical expertise, capability gaps in the industrial base and divergent needs in users of space systems, among others, GAO said.

GAO acknowledged that DOD is operating in a challenging environment, pressured "to deliver new, transformational capabilities" while managing "problematic, older satellite programs" that continue to cost money, constrain investment dollars and pose a risk to capabilities.