NOAA operates GOES as a two-satellite system that is primarily focused on the United States. These satellites are uniquely positioned to provide timely environmental data about the earth’s atmosphere, its surface, cloud cover, and the space environment to meteorologists and their audiences. They also observe the development of hazardous weather, such as hurricanes and severe thunderstorms, and track their movement and intensity to reduce or avoid major losses of property and life. Furthermore, the satellites’ ability to provide broad, continuously updated coverage of atmospheric conditions over land and oceans is important to NOAA’s weather forecasting operations. To provide continuous satellite coverage, NOAA acquires several satellites at a time as part of a series and launches new satellites every few years (see table 1). NOAA’s policy is to have two operational satellites and one backup satellite in orbit at all times. Four GOES satellites—GOES-10, GOES-11, GOES-12, and GOES- 13—are currently in orbit. Both GOES-11 and GOES-12 are operational satellites, with GOES-12 covering the east and GOES-11 the west. GOES-13 is currently in an on-orbit storage mode. It is a backup for the other two satellites should they experience any degradation in service. GOES-10 is at the end of its service life, but it is being used to provide limited coverage of South America. The others in the series, GOES-O and GOES-P, are planned for launch over the next 2 years. NOAA is also planning the next generation of satellites, known as the GOES-R series, which are planned for launch beginning in 2015. NOAA plans for the GOES-R program to improve on the technology of prior series, in terms of both system and instrument improvements. The system improvements are expected to fulfill more demanding user requirements by updating the satellite data more often and providing satellite products to users more quickly. The instrument improvements are expected to significantly increase the clarity and precision of the observed environmental data. NOAA originally planned to acquire six different types of instruments. In September 2006, however, NOAA decided to reduce the scope and technical complexity of the GOES-R program because of expectations that total costs, which were originally estimated to be $6.2 billion, could reach $11.4 billion. Specifically, NOAA reduced the minimum number of satellites from four to two, cancelled plans for developing a critical instrument—the Hyperspectral Environmental Suite (which reduced the number of planned satellite products from 81 to 68), and divided the Solar Imaging Suite into two separate acquisitions. The agency estimated that the revised program would cost $7 billion. In addition to the reductions in scope, NOAA also delayed the launch of the first satellite from September 2012 to December 2014. NOAA is solely responsible for GOES-R program funding and overall mission success. However, since it relies on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) acquisition experience and technical expertise to help ensure the success of its programs, NOAA implemented an integrated program management structure with NASA for the GOES-R program. Within the program office, there are two project offices that manage key components of the GOES-R system—the flight and ground segment project offices. The flight project office, managed by NASA, is responsible for awarding and managing the spacecraft segment contract, delivering flight-ready instruments to the spacecraft segment contractor for integration onto the satellites, and overseeing the systems engineering and integration. The ground segment project office, managed by NOAA, oversees the ground contract, satellite data product development and distribution, and on-orbit operations of the satellites. NOAA and NASA have made progress on the GOES-R program. In January 2008, NOAA approved the program’s move from the preliminary design and definition phase to the development phase of the acquisition life cycle. This approval also gave the program the authority to issue the requests for proposals for the spacecraft and ground segment projects—which it did in January 2008 and May 2008, respectively. The program office plans to award the prime contract for the spacecraft segment in May 2009 and the contract for the ground segment in June 2009. In addition, between September 2004 and December 2007, the GOES-R program awarded contracts for the development of five key instruments. These instruments are currently in varying stages of development. Figure 1 depicts the schedule for both the program and key instruments. NOAA has made several important decisions about the cost, scope, and schedule of the GOES-R program. After reconciling the program office’s cost estimate with an independent cost estimate, the agency established a new program cost estimate of $7.67 billion, an increase of $670 million from the previous estimate. Agency officials plan to revisit this cost estimate after the spacecraft and ground segment contracts are awarded but stated that it was developed with a relatively high level of confidence and that they believe that any adjustments would be well within the $7.67 billion program budget. To mitigate the risk that costs would rise, program officials decided to remove selected program requirements from the baseline program and treat them as options that could be exercised if funds allow. These requirements include the number of products to be distributed, the time to deliver the remaining products (product latency), and how often these products are updated with new satellite data (refresh rate). Specifically, program officials eliminated the requirement to develop and distribute 34 of the 68 envisioned products, including aircraft icing threat, turbulence, and visibility. Program officials explained that these products are not currently being produced by legacy GOES satellites; they are new products that could be produced from the advanced GOES-R instruments. In addition, the program slowed planned product latency on the remaining products by as much as 10 minutes for hurricane intensity and 6 minutes for volcanic ash detection and height. It also reduced the refresh rates on these products by as much as 55 minutes for sea surface temperatures, cloud top observations, and vertical moisture profiles in the atmosphere. Program officials included the restoration of the products, latency, and refresh rates as options in the ground segment contract—items that could be acquired at a later time. NOAA also delayed GOES-R program milestones including the dates for issuing the requests for proposals by up to 6 months and awarding the contracts for the spacecraft and ground segments by 12 and 10 months, respectively. The dates when the satellites would be available for launch have also slipped by 4 months, with the first satellite launch now scheduled for April 2015. Program officials attributed these delays to providing more stringent oversight before releasing the requests for proposals, additional time needed to evaluate the contract proposals, and funding reductions in fiscal year 2008. Recent events have raised doubts about the feasibility of the GOES-R launch date. Specifically, after the spacecraft segment contract was awarded and then protested in December 2008, NASA decided to re-evaluate the proposals. NASA now plans to re-award the contract in May 2009. Because NASA has agreed to a 72-month development cycle for the spacecraft segment (from contract award date to launch readiness), the launch date of GOES-R will likely be delayed until at least May 2015. Any delays in the launch of the first GOES-R satellite run counter to NOAA’s policy of having a backup satellite in orbit at all times and could lead to gaps in satellite coverage. This policy proved useful in December 2008, when NOAA lost communication with GOES-12, but was able to use GOES-13 as an operational satellite until communication was restored. However, beginning in November 2014, NOAA expects to have two operational satellites in orbit (O and P), but it will not have a backup satellite in place until GOES-R is launched. If NOAA experiences a problem with either of its operational satellites before GOES-R is in orbit, it will need to rely on older satellites that are beyond their expected operational lives and therefore may not be fully functional. GOES-R has taken steps to address lessons from other satellite programs. These actions include ensuring sufficient technical readiness of the spacecraft and ground segments prior to awarding the contracts. However, key risks remain and important actions remain to be completed in selected areas. Specifically, key technology risks remain—affecting both the ground segment and the instruments. While the hardware that is to be used for the ground segment is mature, key components have not previously been integrated. In addition, the program office has identified the Advanced Baseline Imager and the Geostationary Lightning Mapper instruments as having a high level of risk associated with cost due in part to the technical challenges posed by each instrument. Program officials reported that they have sufficient management reserves to address these risks. To manage such risks, NOAA uses earned value management, a proven means for measuring progress against cost and schedule commitments and thereby identifying potential cost overruns and schedule delays early, when the impact can be minimized. Two key aspects of this process are (1) conducting comprehensive integrated baseline reviews to obtain agreement from stakeholders on the value of planned work and validate the baseline against which variances are calculated and (2) using monthly variance reports to provide information on the current contract status, the reasons for any deviations from cost or schedule plans, and any actions taken to address these deviations. To its credit, the GOES-R program office is using earned value management to oversee the key instrument contracts and plans to use it on the spacecraft and ground segment contracts. To date, the program office has performed integrated baseline reviews on the instruments and obtains and reviews variance reports for each of the instruments. However, the program’s integrated baseline review for the Advanced Baseline Imager did not include a review of schedule milestones, the adequacy of how tasks are measured, and the contractor’s management processes. Further, the variance reports for two instruments—the Advanced Baseline Imager and the Geostationary Lightning Mapper—do not describe all of the significant variances.