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I wouldn’t really expect a Trump administration spokesperson to put out a statement critical of the Trump administration’s decision.
by lurkshark 1y ago
I wouldn’t really expect a Trump administration spokesperson to put out a statement critical of the Trump administration’s decision.
- lenkite 1y agoThis is Congress 2015 decision. The Trump administration extended the deadline by another month.
- lurkshark 1y agoThe congressional decision was to scrap the continued development of the DMSP satellites, not to decommission the existing ones or stop the data sharing arrangement. The DoD confirmed the DMSP is still operating and will continue to do so but the data sharing is what they have now decided to cut off. It also looks like one of the “next-generation” systems, the JPSS, has been ordered to operate in maintenance mode. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amid-trump-cuts-noaa-halts-upkeep-of-critical-weather-satellites/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amid-trump-cuts-n...
- lenkite 1y agoWell, the history of the existing satellites shows that many of them have exploded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Meteorological_Satellite_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Meteorological_Satelli... AFAIK, Congress voted in 2015 to terminate the whole DMSP program. There was no mention of continuation of "data sharing" or anything like that, as you suggest. I guess in the DOGE budget cleanup of DoD, terminated programs are really being terminated instead of continuing to operate under the radar. Regarding JPSS - that article says that new JPSS satellites are scheduled to be launched. I agree that the "minimum mission operations approach" doesn't make much sense if that is the case. My guess is that this is a stupid cost cutting move that will most likely be rolled back after pushback.