Troubled satellite program has more delays, higher costs
Air Force program is more than three years behind schedule and will cost $500 million more than originally estimated, GAO says.
The Air Force has pushed the initial launch date for the Transformational Satellite Communications System to September 2014, marking another in a series of schedule delays for the struggling $16 billion program, congressional investigators concluded in a report released Wednesday.
Widely regarded as one of the Pentagon's most complex space programs, TSAT is now more than three years behind schedule and will cost $500 million more than original estimates, the Government Accountability Office report said.
The report acknowledges that the Defense Department has been working to minimize program risks by taking an incremental approach to technology development that will mean a gradual maturation in the satellites' capabilities over the next several years.
But investigators found defense officials still had "gaps in knowledge that could hamper [the program's] success," the report said. "DOD could improve the likelihood of gaining program success by gaining additional knowledge," it added.
Indeed, critics have long said the Defense Department put the program on an overly aggressive development schedule before it had an adequate understanding of the system's core technologies. The program began in 2004 with the first satellite launch planned in April 2011.
Defense giants Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. are competing for the program, a constellation of five satellites that will serve as the backbone for a secure, jam-proof communications network for the military's air, land and naval forces.
In its report, GAO recommended the Defense Department "re-evaluate the value of TSAT" in light of other military communications programs. Investigators also urged the Air Force to update the program's requirements and establish new cost, schedule and performance goals.
The Defense Department wrote GAO May 16 to agree with the GAO recommendations. Much of the recommended work is either under way or already has been completed, wrote Ronald Jost, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for command, control, communications, space and spectrum programs.
But Jost also blamed congressional cuts in the program's budget over the last two years for the program's schedule delays and increased costs.
"Per congressional direction, the TSAT program office lengthened the TSAT schedule," Jost wrote. "As a direct result, program completion costs increased."
Appropriators last year slashed $400 million from the $829 million TSAT budget request, amid concerns about technological maturity and program management. The Senate and House Defense Appropriations subcommittees have not yet met to mark up the fiscal 2007 spending bill, but cuts to TSAT are considered likely again this year.
Meanwhile, both the Senate and House Armed Services committees have recommended cutting the administration's fiscal 2007 $867.1 million request for the program by $80 million and $70 million, respectively.
While both committees acknowledged the Air Force's attempts to reduce risk, lawmakers said they are uncomfortable allowing the program's budget to increase dramatically in one year.
In their report on the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill, Senate Armed Services members are requiring an Air Force report by February 2007 outlining steps the service has taken to address concerns spelled out by GAO and other government investigators.