The Air Force and its National Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite System cohorts—NOAA and NASA—have worked with prime contractor Northrop Grumman to restructure the budget and technology troubled program. It took a year’s effort, after DOD recertified the need for NPOESS, to devise a new plan that includes the “management controls and reporting requirements” that “will ensure strict oversight of the contractor,” according to a USAF statement. A new fee structure offers incentives based on cost, schedule, and performance. Northrop said in a release that it has met scheduled milestones “throughout the extensive planning effort,” keeping NPOESS “on cost and on schedule for the past 21 months.” The new schedule includes the sensor technology risk-reduction effort, called the NPOESS Preparatory Project, launch in 2009 and the first NPOESS satellite in 2013.
Air Force Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost—a trailblazer and one of the first 10 women to reach a four-star rank across the U.S. military—retired and passed control of U.S. Transportation Command to Air Force Gen. Randall Reed on Oct. 4, finishing an eventful tenure at TRANSCOM.