197 



HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE 

 SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 



HOUSE NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE 

 SUBCOMMITTEE ON FISHERIES, WILDLIFE AND OCEANS 



& 



HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE 



SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT 



JOINT HEARING ON: DUAL-USE OCEANOGRAPHIC PARTNERSHIPS 



25 JANUARY 1996 



INSERT FOR THE RECORD 



PAGE 123. LINE ^221. 



"The information follows:" 



Reference; REPORT ON CONVERGING NASA/NAVY ALTlMETliY^pcrauons 

 MISSIONS, MAY 1995: I Dcpi. of the Nav> 



This report ""is a NASA/DOD' response' "to the National 

 Defense Authorization Act (House of Representatives 

 Report 103-701, Section 258) and the FY1995 NASA 

 Authorization Bill 'passed by the House (HR 4489), which 

 required the Secretary of the Navy and the 

 Administrator of NASA to jointly conduct a study on the 

 convergence of the NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) 

 radar altimetry mission with the Navy GEOSAT Follow-On 

 (GFO) Program. 



The DON proposal was to create a Navy/NASA 

 partnership since data coverage and U.S. government 

 costs for the proposed NASA/NAVY GFO-2 were competitive 

 with the U.S. /French TOPEX/POSEIDON FOLLOW-ON (TPFO) . 

 As outlined in the referenced report, it was decided 

 that continuation of the U.S. /French relationship in 

 space collaboration was an overwhelming reason to 

 select TPFO over GFO-2. There was legitimate concern 

 that selecting a U.S. - only option would raise doubts 

 about NASA's intentions with our international partners 

 and compromise NASA's ability to secure other 

 international collaborations in the future, such as the 

 Space Station, 



Navy downsizing and decreases in funding have led 

 the Navy, as well, to leverage international 

 partnerships as a means to continue mission objectives. 

 We have cooperated with U.S. agencies that also' include 

 international partners, such as RADARSAT (Canada) , and 

 the European Space Agency (ESA) . The National Polar- 

 Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System 

 (NPOESS) will include DOD Services (Air Force, Navy, 

 Army) , NOAA, NASA and European agencies (EUMETSAT) . 

 Through this partnership, the U.S. provides two polar- 

 orbiting satellites with the Europeans providing the 



