The U.S. Defense Department may finally be on track to replace its aging polar-orbiting weather satellites more than a decade after pulling the plug o

A race against time to replace aging military weather satellites

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2021-05-25 17:30:08

The U.S. Defense Department may finally be on track to replace its aging polar-orbiting weather satellites more than a decade after pulling the plug on an ill-fated effort to cram civil and military requirements into a single system.

Work is underway on two new military satellite systems designed to replace the most critical capabilities of the venerable Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). But the new satellites aren’t slated to begin operations until 2024 and 2026, a timeline just barely in sync with how much longer the U.S. Space Force thinks it can keep DMSP going.

The Space Force’s most recent DMSP reliability assessment concluded that the satellites will reach “mission end-of-life” between late 2023 and sometime in 2026.

DoD’s game plan has little margin for error. If the new satellites run late, or if DMSP goes dark sooner than expected, the Space Force and its partners could be looking at gaps in critical weather data used by military planners.