The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Air Force and NASA will meet Nov. 22 to discuss options for proceeding with the troubled National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, which is running up to $3 billion over budget and years behind schedule.

The Air Force informed Congress in September that the multibillion-dollar weather satellite program had breached Nunn-McCurdy cost growth caps. The service assigned an independent assessment team to review NPOESS that will present its results at the Nov. 22 meeting. The Pentagon's Cost Analysis Improvement Group (CAIG) also will be weighing in.

The NPOESS executive committee plans to winnow down the choices for proceeding during the meeting, wait for further analysis of those options from the CAIG, and then make a decision on NPOESS' future in December. The first operational NPOESS satellite is not expected to launch before 2011 or 2012, which could result in a gap in satellite coverage if current systems fail.

Capitol Hill lawmakers blasted the program during a hearing of the House Science Committee in Washington on Nov. 16, repeatedly pressing NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher to explain why NOAA currently plans to wait until fiscal 2008 to request more money to help get the troubled program back on track.

Lautenbacher said he is not convinced that more money is what the program needs in the short term, although he would be willing to ask for such funds in a supplemental budget request if the NPOESS executive committee deems it necessary.

NPOESS' problems are blamed on development issues with its many sensors, particularly the Raytheon-led Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and the Boeing-led Conical Microwave Imager/Sounder, which Lautenbacher called "the next big one to take a look at" for cost and schedule risk.

Since the overruns came to light earlier this year, the former NPOESS Integrated Project Office system director has resigned, prime contractor Northrop Grumman has replaced its NPOESS program manager and Raytheon has brought in a new team to oversee VIIRS.

House Democrats were particularly critical of NOAA's handling of the program during the hearing, with ranking member Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) saying to Lautenbacher, "you have not yet lived up to your pledge of full cooperation" with the committee.

Gordon and others also complained that not all of their document requests have been fulfilled by NOAA, a situation Lautenbacher attributed to the slow interagency approval process. Lautenbacher and Air Force Undersecretary Ron Sega pledged to send the committee documents from the Nov. 22 meeting as quickly as possible.

Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) stressed the national importance of NPOESS in his opening statement. "Without polar satellites, we pretty much lose the ability to understand longer-term weather trends, and our knowledge of those trends can save lives," he said.