Committee Welcomes Decision to Restore New Ozone Sensor to Full Capacity
(Washington, DC) Senior Members of the House Committee on Science and Technology welcomed a decision this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to move forward with the full-capability Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) sensor on the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission.
The NPP is a precursor for the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) weather satellites, and is intended to give NOAA actual experience with the new and more capable instruments that will one day fly aboard NPOESS.
Last month, a bipartisan group of Science and Technology Committee Chairmen and Ranking Members led by Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) and Ranking Member Ralph Hall (R-TX) urged Dr. John H. Marburger, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy; NASA Administrator Dr. Michael Griffin; NOAA Administrator Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher; and Undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force Ron Sega, to restore the key ozone layer climate sensor.
“Restoring the sensor to the NPP would reduce the risk that we lose ozone monitoring capabilities…it also assures the continued ability to monitor the recovery of the ozone layer…,” wrote the Committee Members on March 9. The letters urged that NPP carry the complete OMPS instrument, including OMPS-Limb, noting that the components were already built and estimates of the cost of removing the sensor were similar to the cost of carrying it to completion.
The troubled NPOESS program underwent a restructuring in June 2005, having exceeded its baseline cost estimates by 25 percent. One of the decisions from that restructuring was to remove the part of the OMPS sensor that would improve our ability to understand the structure of the stratospheric ozone layer in finer detail in parts of the atmosphere where chlorofluorocarbons destroy the protective ozone layer that shields the earth against harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.
That instrument (called OMPS-Limb) would improve our ability to understand ozone structure in finer detail in parts of the atmosphere where chlorofluorocarbons attack this protective shield against harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.
According to an analysis by NASA and NOAA, loss of this sensor would endanger our ability to track the recovery of the ozone layer after the expected loss of NASA's Aura mission in 2010; the analysis called the measurements from this sensor "…an essential component of interpreting the ozone recovery process."
The Members believe that yesterday's decision by NASA and NOAA is one small but important step in maintaining our ability to understand the changes that are happening on and around our home planet.
Click here for a copy of the Members’ March 9, 2007 letter.
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