NPOESS Restructuring Plan Trims Satellites, Capabilities

摘要

The long-awaited restructuring plan for the next generation of U.S. polar orbiting weather satellites curtails the number of platforms to be purchased, eliminates several instruments and places renewed reliance on a European contribution, according to U.S. government officials and documents. The revamped National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) will be less capable but still far more expensive than originally planned. Senior officials managing the troubled tri-agency civil-military program told the House Science Committee in a June 8 hearing that they had to make sacrifices to avoid a gap in weather forecasting coverage.