this hearing will now come to order good good afternoon and welcome today's hearing continuing independent assessment of the national polar orbiting operational environmental satellite system committee the chairmanship of then former chairman boehlert and our current chairman gorton have devoted years of oversight to this program and despite our relentless pressure our relentless oversight to get this program under control we meet again to learn what's going wrong that the imposed satellites are facing another delay another schedule slip and that the t did has grown an additional billion dollars the committee's first hearing on the subject was in two thousand and three my first year in congress at that time the first imposed satellite was projected for a launch in two thousand not this year here we are six years of effort have gained us one year of expected progress now we think that the first imposed satellite is likely to and fourteen but if the math is correct and we continue to advance at the right that we're advancing the satellite will not really be ready for launch until twenty thirty nine that is obviously not acceptable the delays and cost overruns we will hear about today are not the most important news from the hearing the most important news is what steps need to be taken to reorganize the manage this program in order to achieve a successful launch by two thousand and fourteen we probably can't manage one this year at this point to help us understand what still needs to be done to independent groups have given us the result of their recent works welcome mr tom yong who has found it hard to enjoy his retirement with all of the investigations of government space programs that we have asked him to lead in recent years he will present the findings of an independent review team that has just completed its review of the imposed program management mr pounder and mr young have recommendations for for congress and the administration regarding how to restructure the management to a successful conclusion by which i assume we mean actually launching one serving in her position since these says to a few feet since december of two thousand and seven means that she should have some historical perspective on all the questions facing no us and the administration fundamentally we hope she will shed light on why the last director o s t p failed to make decisions on this project  that are now left to the new administration i think that mr young mr pounder in this black and we'll all agree that impose now needs key got it that only a white house can deliver as a project shared among three agencies that apartment of fence nasa and noah impose is cursed by too many cooks and no agreed upon recipe for the proper mission for the program only the white house can settle those differences instead of being here the rayburn building they are presumably in an undisclosed secure location when it comes to impose it has been years since we had the luxury of time for making decisions no recently made its last poll or satellite operational it predicted a lifetime is five years with every passing month g a o reminds us that we get closer to the probability of a data interruption in weather data as well as a certain interruption  feel much more confident with that plan if the n p p launch schedule was not also slipping and if we actually knew whether its main instrument was going to work well marsh twelve speaking to satellite to state officials about the recovery act president obama said if we see money being misspent we're going to put a stop to it we've seen money misspent on impose but stopping impose is not an option  impose may be a mess no real maybe about it and it may have been mismanaged not much maybe about that either but the american public needs the data produced by impose in order to have accurate weather forecast and the world needs to needs the climate data that would be collected by imposed to continue to understand how our climate is changing cancellation of imposed is not an option failure is unacceptable if we did not have impose we will need something like it and we will need it soon we will spend our time today trying to deal with a program asset is determine where we need to go in decide how we will get there from here and one thing with this is for thank you mr chairman i want to welcome our witnesses witnesses here today and thank them for participating in this important hearing this is a committee six hearing on the imposed program scanning both democratic as well as republican controls of the committee this is however the first time that this committee the investigation's oversight subcommittee has held a hearing but we have been actively involved for some time now imposed was originally planned to create synergies in cost savings by combining the the m s p within the department of defense and the post system at no other but instead the program is doubling calls from from six to four satellites degrade its sensor capabilities and seen its schedule slip six years if that wasn't bad enough mr young poets out in his testimony that quote him the current program has an extraordinarily low probability of success unquote even after numerous rebase landings and a significant none mccarthy recertification so how do we get here after several years of cooperation has become clear that the partner agencies have different priorities and levels of commitment this is certainly expected their unique missions but this divergence has ultimately created an partnership no was pressured by the scientific community to continue operation of research satellites that the cutting edge data into weather and climate models while the odious could take it to operate legacy hardware no it doesn't have any extra post satellites to buffet's transition while d o d still has to d m s be satellites on the ground this is no was flagship mission yet this barely amounts to a round error in the pentagon's budget another reason is simply that space acquisition isn't easy this isn't an excuse but it's worth noting that we aren't asking these agencies to build cardboard boxes sure the government could do better with cost estimating with per curiam and and contract management but in the end we are building one of a kind innovative hardware and launching it seventeen hundred seventeen thousand five hundred miles per hour into the vacuum of space because of this complexity we have sought to limit our cost by putting numerous sensors on fewer sprays craft and launch vehicles thereby restricting opportunities for performance upgrades to generational time frames doing so if we have created a program that is essentially too big to fail a phrase we have all heard lately describe another huge fiasco by placing all of our eggs in one basket we have developed an architecture where it seems failure is not an option for the compound is a problem or issues of requirement creeps from climate sensors schedule pressure because of data continuity concerns and cost caps from external factors like nine mccarty it really isn't surprising that the program isn't run well when the managers can fine tune fundamental program management predators like cost schedule and performance so where do we go from here the g a o and the independent of view team have offered recommendations and no it has post future management budget date options that are t states that this program will ultimately require the white house to weigh in we certainly have near term decisions on the horizon as well as long term plans to consider i look forward to exploring the implications of these options and propose directions with the chairman imposes a critical national asset that deserves not only this committee's attention but also that of all partner agencies the white house and the years every american is impacted by this program whether they know it or not it is our responsibility to ensure that the farmers fisherman our soldiers and sailors marines and everyday commuters continue to receive weather and climate information but we must not forget to be good stewards of taxpayers money and to root out waste inefficiency and implication wherever we can thank you mr chairman i yield back t have any objection to taking in all the witnesses indicated they did not you also have the right to be represented by counsel do any of you have counsel here all the witnesses indicated that they did not   do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth all the witnesses responded in the affirmative so the witnesses have now taken the oath we will begin with mr davi chairman miller ranking member brown and members of the subcommittee we appreciate the opportunity to testify on our latest and pows report being released today this afternoon i will discuss and poses continued problems in our recommendations for improvement both near and long term so that our nation will have continued dated imagery essential for weather forecasting and climate monitoring six years ago i first testified on any post before chairman eyler subcommittee when posed was a seven billion dollar program and the launch of its first satellite was april two thousand and nine today the cost has increased eight billion dollars to at least fifteen billion in the first satellite launch has been delayed five years to march two thousand and fourteen i will briefly discuss these increasing cost schedule delays as well as potential gaps in critical satellite coverage and ineffective executive management the current cost of fourteen billion dollars in the various planned launch schedules are not achievable technical problems with t critical sensors vere's and chris continued to drive up costs and push launch schedules out we expect the current fourteen billion dollar estimate increased at least a billion dollars to cover sensor technical issues new security requirements in additional operations and maintenance costs we also need to keep in mind that the integration and testing of the sensors for the initial satellites is not yet a heard and this could be an additional cost driver the new cost estimates are scheduled to go to the x com for approval by the end of the month and we understand at least five estimates are being considered schedules for the demonstration satellite known as m p p in the first two satellites have been delayed seven fourteen and five months respectively these delays and danger the continuity of weather and climate data with the current launch schedule should we run into any problems with the satellite launch failure or operational problems we will have gaps in satellite coverage my written testimony highlights these potential gaps in each of the three orbits in fact a single launch failure of one of the remaining d o d satellites known as d m s p or event p p could result in a gap in satellite coverage of up to five years no it has been plagued by ineffective management over the years and today our report highlights the end poses executive committee has not been effective and fulfilling its responsibilities which has contributed and poses problems specifically the right folks don't attend the x com meetings those that do don't effectively manage risks nor do they make tough decisions when needed for example the o d s under secretary for acquisition is d official x com member as agreed to an official memorandums of agreement this official who is d o d s acquisition authority has never attended an ex con meeting and has delegated this role to the under secretary of the air force not having the acquisition of the word attend these meetings has resulted in delays as the ex comm decisions have later been overturned by the acquisition authority the bottom line here is that having the right officials attend could greatly streamline decision making in addition although the x com holds quarterly meetings they do not routinely track action items and issues to closure also the triage and see structure create situation of differing and competing priorities and the  com has not been effective in resolving these differences in fact the x com is about to be presented with differing cost estimates by the end of the month when they will be asked to make a tough decision on the right program cost and scope especially given the fact that no one d o d will likely have differing costs and program performance that are acceptable before discussing our recommendation i'd like to note a few areas of progress the end post program has delivered an integrated three of the five instruments f the ground station systems have been installed and tested at both locations in the commanding control system has passed acceptance testing however moving forward we recommend that in the near term and the end post program needs to have the right x com members attendant participate in the x com meetings and these include this includes d o d s undersecretary for acquisition also the ex con needs to festively manage risks and make decisions starting with the proving new program cost and schedule baselines the program also needs to develop mitigation plans to address potential gaps in satellite coverage and it needs to seek white house guidance on a direction forward these near term recommendations are essential to keep the acquisition moving forward to mitigate future cost increases scheduled delays and gaps and satellite coverage looking at this from a longer term perspective we need to acknowledge this tri agency experiment has been an epic failure and we need an exit strategy to go back to separate satellite acquisitions for the next series of polar orbiting satellites mr chairman this concludes my statement thank you for your leadership in oversight of this acquisition thank you mr pounder about mr young chairman miller ranking member brown members of the show committee i am pleased to present a summary of the imposed independent review team report we have done a slide ten findings and recommended corrective actions finding one current in post program has an extraordinarily low probability of success and employment taishan of the following recommendations that i'll discuss are necessary to address this finding t data outages in a particular arbet can be measured in years with a failure corrective action is limited to moving the thirty four spacecraft closer to the first and second spacecraft and their development schedules launch you know a need rather than schedule and exploiting in p p data three in post is being managed with cost is the most important parameter and not mission success this program cost focused culture needs to change to mission success focus culture and they impose contract awards the criteria it needs a similar change in focus for in post x com is in effect youth members must have decision authority the focus of the x com should be top level issues and timely decisions five impose program is not part of a space acquisition organization which makes program implementation extremely difficult in post must be assigned to a space acquisition organization such as space and missile systems center or nasa six fiscal year funding shortfalls are causing decisions to be made that are adding risk and increasing cost funding shortfalls must be corrected seven the highest probability of success is to main again the current contractor team northrop grumman and raytheon and they are t recommences action eight due to potential for coverage gaps in t t has become a critical asset and it is recommended that this be recognized an that their own will and a robot additional funding to achieve above legacy capability know a stated that current weather forecast and utilize these legacy and nasa r and d satellite data a sept in legacy capabilities would be a significant step back this difference in priorities must be resolved ten the current budget is an adequate with a shortfall in excess of one billion dollars funding the program b recognizes that in post is a national program with quality of life economic disaster planning and national security implications while they are t believes decided recommendations must be implemented additional actions are necessary to have a successful in post program the critical issue is the lack of alignment of d o d slash air force and noah priorities the r t believes that the x com will be unable to resolve this difference and the white house will be required to define the imposed program that is in the national interest following the end post program decision the responsibility for a program to implement action must be assigned to one organization airforce with s m c have an implementation responsibility or no would nasa have an implementation responsibility either can do the job the r t believes that the management organization must have total acquisition responsibility be allocated all currently planned in program budget and be responsible for funding the defined program at eighty percent confidence level the i r t recommends that  responsibility for any post be assigned to noah with nasa acting as miller's acquisition organization this recommendation is based upon the recognition that noah has a broader responsibility for weather  climate requirements than any other organization and is a natural advocate for this program under this construct no one nasa will provide imposed data to the d o d air force and establish a process to meet future d air force needs the x com concept should continue to assure effective program implementation implementation of the r t recommendations and additional actions is urgently required appreciate the opportunity to testify about the steps now i've taken over the past year to address the ongoing challenges of this critical program i'm a thirty year career employee of now i've only served in my current position for the past eighteen months during this short tenure i've spent a significant portion of my time learning about overseeing the complex management of now its satellite programs especially and pose the challenges the program faced are substantial and i'm working closely with both secretary locke and no administrator  to go to address the recommendations presented by both g a o and the independent review team since noah's final satellite in its current series was launched earlier this spring the urge the agency is particularly focused on the threat further delays in this program may have on crucial weather and climate forecasts no it provides to the nation know is working with its partners d o d and nasa to move quickly to resolve remaining program issues and and given their possible consequences i'd like to highlight two actions we've taken over the past year or two on the program and then address the recommendations that we've just heard from the two my two colleagues here one step that no has taken is that we've advocated it with our tri agency partners last summer to install a government program manager at the sub contractor facility where the main imogene sensor known as spears is being developed by installing a government official and plan an action typically taken by nasa for to complex developments it's enabled the program to better address the ongoing technical problems the benefits are not only providing significant oversight of day to day testing and quality assurance processes but allows the government to anticipate and react quickly to problems the second step as highlighted by this hearing is the tri agency leadership of the x com called for the high level independent review that mr young just provided this committee when the i r t findings were initially reported to the x com they made it very clear that the end post program has little chance of success at its current as it is currently structured no it's taking the team's grim assessment of the program very seriously and is working with nasa to respond to the recommendations notably we're actively working with the leadership of the white house office of science and technology policy to resolve the differences that exist among the agencies and implement actions to respond to the recommendations we're approaching the responses to the finding of recommendations through three major areas which all address management the program satellite coverage and budgeting of the program for management no idea d n a s i have been developing and considering for possible options option one is to maintain the existing tri agency partnership with management improvements an additional budget reserve this under this option the tri agency structure would remain in place but the button schedule would be adjusted to allow the program to continue and to address continued technical challenges option two would address what establishment know as the national lead for delivering weather and climate data under this option now with nasa as its acquisition agent would have responsibility for delivering a system that provides weather and climate data of required d o d would continue to provide funds and all agencies would still coordinate on the data needs for their user communities the end post program office would be transferred to nasa's goddard space flight facility center in maryland option three would be similar but with d o d s the national league for delivering this under this option the end post program office would be transferred to the air force base  missile center in los angeles option four would result in divergence of the end post program into two separate agency programs one d o d and one that was under this option each agency would be responsible for acquisition of satellites in its own priority orbit similar to how now an air force currently operate them the tried agency partners are continuing to assess an outline possible implementation approaches for each of these options the second area satellite coverage and data continuity in partnership with nasa india d we've been considering ways to modify the constellation to address the risk of potential gaps possible and just possible adjustments here include modifying the undeveloped portions of the ground system and the one on built sensor reconsidering the structure of the primary spacecraft and you so small satellites are commercial satellites to help make the program more successful regarding budget no idea d n a s are working to address the budget challenges facing the program continued development problems have consumed the program's resources and force the programs to make difficult tradeoffs the program will likely require increased budget to meet the nation's need or have the program scope reduced to better align with available budget cost estimating is underway at this time regarding g a o recommendations no it concurs with all of the recommendations and is implementing them and in conclusion i just like to state that it's widely acknowledged that satellites are very complicated and difficult systems to design build and operate however their capabilities play a key role and now its mission to observe and predict the earth's environment and provide critical information protecting life and property based on the initial based on the steps noah has taken in partnership with mass and the programs on an initial path to resolve some of its current challenges however it's clear additional work by the government is required to fully resolve these issues and the program intends to continue to keep this committee apprised of its developments as we move forward thank you very much it sounds like will be six more oversight hearings on the of the failure to the inability of the three agencies no audio d nasa the tri agency executive committee or ex comm to function properly for the different agencies simply to play well with all of your recommendation that in the future they should develop their own satellites because i couldn't get along seems like an extraordinary step when there appear to be some significant can be made to work as intended with different people in the seats i think clearly in the short term the delivery of the four satellites as well as demonstration satellite with and pose we need to keep the current structure or go to something similar to what mr young is suggesting with one agency lead we've you know we're about ready to deliver on the demonstration satellite hopefully and then also with the first satellite see one  recommendations long term to split and i think if you look at look historically this was intended to save money it hasn't saved money we still haven't resolved the differing agency missions i think after these four satellites are delivered we had to consider going back to separate satellite acquisitions in the interim our recommendations are geared towards getting the x com on board they still have a management role here to deliver the satellites that are currently on the table mr young do you agree is any is there something that's just in the system of having these three agencies try to work together is it a personality issue is there any possibility now we've got different people sitting in the seats that the  of the partners are different and it's hard to have integrated management team when the various partners have different priorities but i will come back and say you know as i mentioned my testimony i think even in the pointed out in the g a o report the d o d representatives not the individual decision making authority so fundamentally this is an organization that meets some weeks afterwards  there is some meeting which i'm not totally familiar with where the decision making authority of the individual who has milestone that acquisition authority makes decisions so i think there's there are ways to make it more efficient but it's hard to overcome the factor that the three organizations have in our view different priorities and by the way i want to come back and say it doesn't mean any of the projects are wrong i mean it's just that there are different cannot come to resolution on the issue for the reasons we've talked about so then as you said it really has to go to another level are when we really got looking at this that was comma beyond where we had expected to go to tell you the truth but we started looking at this particular program it becomes very odd that this is a national program for all the reason that you folks don't know fide it's not a program that should be a subject a compromise it's a sub program that should be decided on what's in the best interest of the country and the right place for that to be done is the white house in our view the office of the president has to designate a decision maker underline decision maker not a committee chairman not a coordinator but a decision maker and that decision maker has to listen to all of the inputs and decide one what's affordable and two what's in the best interest of the country i think it can be done we did in a done a fall who that should be certainly could be the director of the office of science technology policy could be director of the n s c but i think it's probably in those two organizations that you would find the right expertise to provide this leadership but again if you'll excuse me i want to underline we don't need another committee chairman and we don't need another coordinator and we need someone who is going to listen to all the facts and decide what's in the best interest of the country on time and sound sparred both cloakrooms have now told us that they're likely to be votes shortly we will try to go and make a decision about whether we will come back or not you know how far we've gone in i think all the members should know that if they remain members of this committee they'll have speak from a now up perspective here no i believe that we have the broadest mission requirements for this for both weather and climate and we also recognize that this is a critically important program to us that's really germane to our mission and no would be prepared to take leadership in this program i think as we move forward with that there's quite a few i would hasten to say that's quite a few issues associated with things that have to be worked out and we're really in the midst of of doing that but secretary locke has been actively engaged in this program and committed to finding the right solution for the nation and if it's going to be right for the nation then i think he would be prepared cons to them that are still being evaluate at this point i think the status quo does represent some significant challenges for us as as mr young has highlighted for us today options two and three i think have a significant pro to them in that there would be a very clear point for authority accountability and responsibility for a program there to go to option two would obviously be a transition to get there option three would be easier an option for which i described as a divergence i'll take another minute to say that there really is still a lot of commonality in that fight we have a ground system today and the committee may not be if where but now actually operates d o d s operational satellites for them today so no it has a very strong role in operations of the satellites mr young would you please comment on those four had any other option that you see of the four as well as write them in order of effectiveness and implementation of them if you're just a little bit of background you're probably familiar but our particular group we had a fairly broad representation it was nine of us but if if there was any waiting it was in the direction of people who had national security space experience i really highlight that because it was a group that i the organisation that the country looks to weather and climate leadership and when you're assigning responsibility for something i think you want to assign it to that organisation where it's their number one priority not their number or something priority and in that regard it's number one priority to know it was very obvious to us that no it was the organisation no it's not a space acquisition organization so they need nasa to be a partner with them in order to be able to the one agency i agree that no would be that agency because this is not a priority at d o t the fourth option is clearly a longer term approach after this constellation of and post satellites would be launched try to be brief mr pounder it seems that every time that you come before this committee on your porting cost increases in this program that the entire nine mccurdy process is supposed to stabilize the program why haven't we converged on a stable cost  estimate for the program before this and can you give me a firm number now i think if you look at the history of this program the current overrun is primarily due to the technical problems that the program is faced with the fear sensor i think there were unforeseen technical problems you can argue that maybe those technical problems could have we could should have anticipated those so in the past we can go back to there's been mismanagement across the board on this we're faulting x com right now historically you can go back there was prime contractor not overseeing subs there were problems with program office so there's been mismanagement throughout not a single organization that we can point to say that's the one organization it's been from contractors through program office through p e o's two x com everyone's at fault i think if you look going forward the the estimate right now three point nine billion it's going to at least grow another billion but likely more because there are also will be integration issues which typically occur on both n p p and that first satellite so i would expect at a minimum it'll be one billion but likely more so that a place in the fifteen billion dollar life cycle cost range some say i was a total fifteen billion can you say that that's a stable number you know it'll be higher than that so it's still no firm number and i think the program would agree with that too that's why they want to have these detailed cost estimates that they're going to work on there's five estimates they're currently in the works right now we haven't seen those those have not been disclosed to us it's going to least be fifteen mr young and it's back and would you please comment on my question i really can't add to the cost numbers when in our report the thing we really try we said great are the excess of a billion dollars it's back and i agree with that well it certainly would be nice to have a stable number that we know we can i'm there to congress but does i've been here for all these other hearings and i guess i'll be here for quite a few after this you know about what's ahead i have yeah i hope i am but i mean i hope i'm not i hope that we can put this probably i know you know just as a concerned citizen who came in the congress these are the kind of things that you know just make people back home shake their heads and wonder what we're doing down here so i probably should but i could add to that i agree my personal belief is it's not necessary to have a seven period are we talking are we talking the biggest problem is in compatibility of hardware between the three different choices is the debate over the hardware itself i don't think so i think it really if i they're satisfied with that capability with the d o d and the air force ok and they're not willing to provide funding to provide capability beyond that now that it's been kind of directed that the two organizations fund fifty fifty now in oil and i can say this much better than i know it states that today they use all of their weather satellites including theirs and d o d s but they also use some very special capability from nas decide life that are operating will beyond their design lifetime and it's the combination of those data that gives us the quality of weather forecasting we have today to go to legacy capability only would be a significant step back in the country's ability to do weather sense the edge that that created because each was trying to be supportive of their respective organizations priorities not surprising given that large difference and it is a large difference in government for over thirty years i mean any bureaucracy that satisfied obviously doesn't know what it doesn't know i mean i think that seriously we need to talk about that and this whole infighting kind of reminds me of trying to get eighteen police agencies to agree on one communication system and everybody's got their angle to it and i understand the infighting here my biggest concern is people thinking they don't have a vested interest in the other guy's agenda i don't think that there are very many people in business who thought the military doing internet was going to be a big deal to them and and frankly i think there's a whole lot of technology exchange i don't think any of us know in the long run the benefits that may happen through cooperation and so much care and i just think that we've got to approach this not just of the issue of what is the forecast saying that every three three agencies want to look at or the data they want to choir or the program they want but the fact of understanding that there are things out there that we're going to get a benefit and get problems and that we don't know about and to approach that i mean how many people in business really saw the eisenhower act which originally was a zine for the military that really was the boon for for interstate commerce so i just hope that we approach this with attitude that there's a lot more extinct than just you know forecasting the weather we know now and i just boggles my mind to think that  maybe the institutions that think they have enough data really aren't aware of just how broad horizons are i guess it goes back to the old thing the turn of the century when they said we might as well shut down the patent office because everything that's ever been invented has already been invented so i go back mr he was true mr davis was made on life slightly easier by going to vote and foregoing his round of questions without making this another round of questions we do have just a minute or two more mr young said he did not think we need a seventh hearing or an eighth or ninth or tenth hearing that there were things that we could do to avoid cost overruns and further everything that's gone wrong mr pounder yeah there's an ex con meeting june twenty six we need a firm decision on program direction which includes scope and cost and if we don't have that decision i think we do need a hearing to someone need to call the secretary of defense and suggest someone show up mr young the white house needs to establish the program it's in the best interest of the country and we need to budget for it at the most probable cost which is a twenty confidence was sufficient amount of contingency this black and i think that we need to make adjustments to the program with respect to management to have the management oversight be more effective and we need to develop realistic  for their hard work on this hopefully we won't need another hearing and hopefully we'll get good management in place and we start flying birds and get the data that ms clarke in her agency needs this will be a soft problem and i just wan thank you all very much i have tremendous respect for mr young i knew him years ago when i was the physician for the martin marietta plan america's choice and so i've known him for a number of years and i just have tremendous confidence in what he recommends nothing both of you gentlemen and i thank but madam secretary for coming thank you thank you very much all right now we need to sprint to the floor but thank you again we will bring this hearing to a close like all the witnesses for testifying on the rules committee did issue the record remain open for two weeks for additional statements from the members and for answers to any follow up questions the committee may have of the witnesses the witnesses or the hearing is now adjourned