FIA: not to worry

US official confident about Boeing spy satellite
Reuters, 10.28.03, 5:10 PM ET
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
[EXCERPT]

WASHINGTON, Oct 28 (Reuters) - The Pentagon mapping and imagery
agency on Tuesday said it was "very comfortable" about next-
generation spy satellites being built by Boeing Co. after $4
billion in cash infusions and a major overhaul.

"Right now, the cost schedule and performance parameters are in
balance. We may not fund everything that people had in their
mind's eye way back when, but it will be a very healthy, robust
program," retired Air Force Gen. James Clapper, director of the
National Imagery and Mapping Agency, told reporters at a briefing.

Lawmakers this year backed plans to overhaul the classified
Future Imagery Architecture program, slated to cost $10 billion
to $25 billion, despite major cost overruns and delays.

The Pentagon's Defense Science Board underscored the extent of
FIA's woes in a scathing report, concluding that the program,
which was designed to improve satellite coverage by orbiting a
larger number of spacecraft, was "not executable."

Clapper said big improvements had been made since the science
board report, including creation of a joint management office run
by NIMA and the National Reconnaissance Office.

"I'm very comfortable with it now," Clapper said of FIA, which
will be equipped with digital optical and radar sensors.

He also dismissed as "hyperbole" concerns that delays in new
programs, coupled with the age of existing satellites could
result in a gap in U.S. satellite capability.

"I suppose you can always postulate some series of catastrophes
that would pose this threat of a gap ... or the risk of the
nation going blind, but I frankly don't see a whole lot of prospect
for that," Clapper said.

But he said it was important to ensure that the U.S. was not reliant
on a single satellite system, one main reason Clapper said he backed
increased use of commercial imagery.

"I think a lot of this gap talk is a bit overblown," he said.