Please read the April 27, 2010 GAO Report. 'Environmental Satellites: Strategy Needed to Sustain Critical Climate and Space Weather Measurements.

Specifically:  In mid-2009, a White House-sponsored interagency working group drafted a report that identifies and prioritizes near-term opportunities for environmental observations; however, the plan has not been approved by key entities within the Executive Office of the President and there is no schedule for finalizing it. In addition, the report does not address costs, schedules, or the long-term provision of satellite data, and there is no process or time frame for implementing it. Without a strategy for continuing environmental measurements over the coming decades and a means for implementing it, agencies will continue to independently pursue their immediate priorities on an ad hoc basis, the economic benefits of a coordinated approach to investments in earth observation may be lost, and our nation's ability to understand climate change may be limited. While federal agencies have taken steps to plan for continued space weather observations in the near-term, they lack a strategy for the long-term provision of space weather data. An interagency space weather program drafted two reports on how to mitigate the loss of key satellites and instruments. These reports were submitted to the Executive Office of the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the fall of 2009. However, OSTP has no schedule for approving or releasing the reports. Until OSTP approves and releases the reports, it will not be clear whether the reports provide a strategy to ensure the long-term provision of space weather data--or whether the current efforts are simply attempts to ensure short-term data continuity.

Bottom Line:  We are presently emerging from a 100-year record Solar Minimum, with exceptional odds in favor of potentially destructive X-Ray Solar Flares and Storms that can and probably will severely damage NOAA, NASA and DOD earth- and space-weather monitoring satellites. 

Task 1: Your agency has  approximately a year to develop and put into place provisions for standby and emergency monitoring program operations, in the event that these key satellite sensors/detectors/spectrometers are disabled by solar extreme events.  It would be a Good Thing to have OSTP review and release reports mentioned above and to meet with collaborating agencies to assess redundancy and backup monitoring system capacity and provision of response plans in the case of 'knockout' conditions.

Task 2:  Work with the White House Interagency Group to address costs, project schedules, and long-term plans for satellite data deliverables to key data centers for instruments that were pulled from GOES-R  and NPOESS program platforms in 2006 and for which no provision has been made to restore or replace monitoring capacity that will jeopardize near real-time reporting and modeling efforts by 2014.  Of critical concern here, NOAA should provide to the Interagency Group detailed plans with implementation process and time-frame details necessary to capture short-term opportunities for environmental observations.

Until OSTP approves and releases the reports, it will not be clear whether the reports provide a *practicable* strategy to provide both short- and long-term acquisition of earth- and space weather data, or whether the current efforts are simply attempts to provide short-term data continuity in lieu of presently absent policy directives for the longer term. Without a comprehensive longterm strategy for the provision of earth- and space-weather data, agencies may make ad hoc decisions to ensure continuity in the near term (in the event of anticipated severe budget cuts) and risk making inefficient investment decisions later, when funding decisions must choose between equally critical and expensive programmatic needs.

With the end of the Space Plane program approaching, and in the event of a disastrous occurrence of repeat, large solar flare events that damage or permanently disable key satellite sensors within the next 24 months, NOAA would be well advised to have emergency monitoring backup plans that afford restoration of primary mission-critical data streams, either by equipment redundancy  or provision by cooperating agency equipment on functioning satellite platforms, post-event.