Saturday, November 26, 2005
Budget Pressures May Imperil Pentagon's New-Breed Satellites
By ANDY PASZTOR
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 19, 2005; Page A4
Plans to build the Pentagon's next-generation satellite-communications network appear on the verge of being delayed and dramatically restructured, battered by escalating pressure on military budgets and congressional skepticism of space programs, according to people close to the companies.
Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. are leading separate teams vying to build the proposed $19 billion system called Transformational Satellite Communications, or TSAT, but both contractors are now preparing for deep cuts and sweeping changes.
No final decisions have been made, and the companies continue to work on competing design contracts. Pentagon officials publicly talk about how important the program is, and the Air Force is still pushing the concept of launching a fleet of newly developed communications satellites starting early in the next decade. They are projected to have vastly greater capacity than existing spacecraft to provide secure communication links for a range of military and intelligence users.
But in their recent internal planning, Chicago-based Boeing and Lockheed, of Bethesda, Md., anticipated a slowdown in funding and piecemeal development of cutting-edge technologies, according to industry officials. The anticipated cutbacks to TSAT -- effectively downgrading the Pentagon's most expensive and ambitious communications project to a longer-term research and technology-development effort -- could set a precedent for a broader shake-up of acquisition of space hardware by the armed forces.
Instead of kicking off TSAT production as early as 2006 as originally anticipated, industry and government officials are mulling less-expensive alternatives using versions of current-generation satellites as a transition to the ultimate system. Boeing and Lockheed are each pushing their own models.
Gen. Lance Lord, head of the Air Force Space Command, said "we'll take a reduction" in funding and "have to look at restructuring" partly because there are lingering questions about "are we moving too fast with the technology."
The fundamental question, according to James Albaugh, chief executive of Boeing's defense and space operations, is whether the "customer has the stomach to take on another big space program." The most likely scenario, he said in a recent interview, is for the Air Force to "build a few more" of the satellites already in production and thereby "kick the can down the road" on deciding the fate of TSAT. [The human talent to build these systems will be long retired or dead by the time the can reaches the end of the road. ]
A Lockheed spokesman, who declined to comment on internal deliberations, said the company "stands ready to help the government" sort through its options. But privately, Lockheed executives for some time have been advocating, as a stopgap measure, that the Air Force should purchase at least one additional so-called AEHF satellite, a model Lockheed already is building for the Pentagon.
Ronald Sega, the Air Force's senior space-acquisition official, has talked about building simpler, less-risky satellites by focusing on gradual performance enhancements. To a large extent, such strategies are driven by harsh budget realities on Capitol Hill. Both the House and Senate are moving to cut at least a third of the Pentagon's $835 million TSAT request for the current fiscal year.
At the same time, Air Force officials are considering delaying and reducing the complexity of certain advanced weather satellites already under construction, and scaling back the capabilities of future spy satellites still in preliminary concept design. But the budget crunch appears most severe for TSAT, which is poised to shift into full-scale production just as the Air Force struggles to reassess its budget priorities and juggle spending between aircraft and space programs.
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 19, 2005; Page A4
Plans to build the Pentagon's next-generation satellite-communications network appear on the verge of being delayed and dramatically restructured, battered by escalating pressure on military budgets and congressional skepticism of space programs, according to people close to the companies.
Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. are leading separate teams vying to build the proposed $19 billion system called Transformational Satellite Communications, or TSAT, but both contractors are now preparing for deep cuts and sweeping changes.
No final decisions have been made, and the companies continue to work on competing design contracts. Pentagon officials publicly talk about how important the program is, and the Air Force is still pushing the concept of launching a fleet of newly developed communications satellites starting early in the next decade. They are projected to have vastly greater capacity than existing spacecraft to provide secure communication links for a range of military and intelligence users.
But in their recent internal planning, Chicago-based Boeing and Lockheed, of Bethesda, Md., anticipated a slowdown in funding and piecemeal development of cutting-edge technologies, according to industry officials. The anticipated cutbacks to TSAT -- effectively downgrading the Pentagon's most expensive and ambitious communications project to a longer-term research and technology-development effort -- could set a precedent for a broader shake-up of acquisition of space hardware by the armed forces.
Instead of kicking off TSAT production as early as 2006 as originally anticipated, industry and government officials are mulling less-expensive alternatives using versions of current-generation satellites as a transition to the ultimate system. Boeing and Lockheed are each pushing their own models.
Gen. Lance Lord, head of the Air Force Space Command, said "we'll take a reduction" in funding and "have to look at restructuring" partly because there are lingering questions about "are we moving too fast with the technology."
The fundamental question, according to James Albaugh, chief executive of Boeing's defense and space operations, is whether the "customer has the stomach to take on another big space program." The most likely scenario, he said in a recent interview, is for the Air Force to "build a few more" of the satellites already in production and thereby "kick the can down the road" on deciding the fate of TSAT. [The human talent to build these systems will be long retired or dead by the time the can reaches the end of the road. ]
A Lockheed spokesman, who declined to comment on internal deliberations, said the company "stands ready to help the government" sort through its options. But privately, Lockheed executives for some time have been advocating, as a stopgap measure, that the Air Force should purchase at least one additional so-called AEHF satellite, a model Lockheed already is building for the Pentagon.
Ronald Sega, the Air Force's senior space-acquisition official, has talked about building simpler, less-risky satellites by focusing on gradual performance enhancements. To a large extent, such strategies are driven by harsh budget realities on Capitol Hill. Both the House and Senate are moving to cut at least a third of the Pentagon's $835 million TSAT request for the current fiscal year.
At the same time, Air Force officials are considering delaying and reducing the complexity of certain advanced weather satellites already under construction, and scaling back the capabilities of future spy satellites still in preliminary concept design. But the budget crunch appears most severe for TSAT, which is poised to shift into full-scale production just as the Air Force struggles to reassess its budget priorities and juggle spending between aircraft and space programs.
# posted by reckoner @ 6:06 AM 
