Res Communis

LDCM LAUNCH DELAY BUYS TIME FOR EXTRA SENSOR

by Joanne Irene Gabrynowicz with the blog faculty

Source: Space News

By BECKY IANNOTTA
Space News Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — NASA has delayed the launch of the next Landsat until December 2012, a decision that will force longer reliance on a pair of U.S. land-imaging satellites already past their primes but that should also give Landsat designers enough time to add a $130 million thermal-infrared sensor to the new spacecraft.

 The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) — also known as Landsat 8 — had been slated for a July 2011 launch, but NASA pushed the date back some 17 months after asking anindependent review team to come up with more conservative schedule and cost estimates in an attempt to minimize overruns that have riddled large-scale missions.

 ”NASA changed the launch date from July 2011 to December 2012 to accommodate the agency’s requirements to plan missions and provide resources with a reasonable expectation of staying within schedule and budget,” NASA spokesman Steve Cole said. “This has been interpreted as planning to a 70 percent confidence level that we will meet the mission [cost and schedule].”

 The independent review team determined in September that LDCM had a less than 20 percent chance of making a July 2011 launch, Cole said. NASA also set LDCM’s baseline budget at $699 million, up from a previous $555 million. 

 LDCM is the eighth in a series of moderate-resolution land imaging satellites the United States has been launching since 1972, usually under a partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and is intended to ensure there are no breaks in the collection of the remote sensing imagery.

 The thermal-infrared data that has been collected by the two Landsats currently in orbit is used to remotely measure water consumption and monitor volcanic activity. The data is especially prized by western U.S. states that rely on it to determine water rights and monitor interstate water compacts. When the White House approved the LDCM mission in late 2005, it made no provision for including a thermal band since the capability was deemed experimental, not a firm requirement. Western governors protested and Congress responded by directing NASA to take steps to include a thermal-infrared sensor.

 The LDCM delay should buy enough time to add the thermal-infrared sensor to the mission, said Bruce Quirk, program manager for the USGS Land Remote Sensing program. Earlier estimates found that adding the instrument could cause a one-year delay.

 ”We were concerned at one time because it looked like putting the thermal imager on would delay the launch,” Quirk said. “But NASA has moved the launch so that will allow us to include that capability on the satellite.”

 General Dynamics Advanced Information of Gilbert, Ariz., is building LDCM under a $116 million fixed-price contract awarded in April 2008. The contract includes an option to add a second instrument to the satellite. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo., is building the satellite’s Operational Land Imager under a $127.9 million contract NASA awarded in July 2007.

 NASA is studying the possibility of including the $130 million thermal-infrared sensor on LDCM but has not received funding or direction from Congress to add the instrument, Cole said. Congress included $10 million in the 2009 budget for NASA to “initiate development and identify the earliest and least expensive approach and flight opportunity.”

 Cole said NASA began preliminary concept work on the thermal-infrared sensor last summer so the agency would be prepared to build the instrument if Congress directed it to do so. The $10 million, Cole said, will allow NASA to continue the concept development work in earnest, with a preliminary review of the initial design planned in June. That review will give NASA officials a better idea of the cost and schedule requirements for adding the instrument to LDCM, he said.

 Meanwhile, USGS officials admit they are on borrowed time with the 25-year-old Landsat 5 and 10-year-old Landsat 7 satellites currently in orbit. While USGS officials have revised previous estimates that both satellites would run out of fuel by the end of 2010, other problems with the satellites have raised questions about how much longer they will last. Both were built with a five-year design life.

 ”We’ve had mechanical and electrical problems often and we’ve found a way to compensate each time,” said USGS spokesman Ron Beck. “But it’s still a crap shoot, I’ll tell you that.”

 USGS managers believe both satellites have enough fuel to survive at least three more years, Beck said.

 “We’re monitoring them very closely and we believe our estimates are solid that they will last until December 2012,” Beck said.

 The science community has been frustrated by delays in getting a new Landsat satellite in orbit before one or both of the existing satellites fails. Scientists note with irony the inclusion of the word “continuity” in the mission’s name given the potential for a gap in Landsat data collection.

 “The delays are very serious because we’re probably looking at a time when we won’t have Landsat data for the first time since 1972,” said Curtis Woodcock, Landsat science team leader and professor at Boston University‘s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. “I don’t think the satellites will make it to 2012, but maybe they will.”

 The most pressing issue now, Woodcock said, is to think beyond LDCM to a follow-on mission to avoid gaps in Landsat data collection later on. Congress directed NASA in the conference report accompanying the 2009 budget to work with USGS and the Office of Science and Technology Policy on a plan for a follow-on LDCM mission. The plan is due to the House and Senate Appropriations committees by Aug. 31.

NASA has been focusing most of its energy on 15 science missions outlined in a 10-year plan known as the Earth science decadal survey, while USGS does not have the resources to build and launch satellites. The result, Woodcock said, is a sort of “bureaucratic morass” that has stymied work on future Landsat missions.

 ”What’s important is not to get into the same situation we’re in now,” Woodcock said. “Landsat is not new. It’s important and it’s valuable and it’s been proven so many times.”