Sticker Shock

HEADNOTE

To slow down satellite programs, Congress clips their budget lines.

Congress appears determined to clip the wings of two big-ticket satellite programs considered central to the military's vision of an Internetstyle

communications network for combat forces and intelligence gatherers. Defense Department over seers in the House and Senate worry that the Air Force is rushing the satellites into development before crucial technologies are mature, causing costs to rise. Lawmakers want to cut hundreds of millions from the Transformational Satellite Communications and Space Radar programs in order to slow them down.

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STAR CHASERS Lawmakers fear pressing fledgling technologies, including Northrop Grumman's TSAT, modeled here, into service too fast.

Neither system is due to begin operating until well into the next decade, but action by three House and Senate committees early in the 2006 appropriations cycle has put their futures in question. In May, the House and Senate Armed Services committees recommended the administration's budget request be cut 33 percent to 56 percent for Space Radar and 24 percent to 48 percent for Transformational Satellite Communications (TSAT). The House Appropriations Committee followed suit in June. If the cuts hold, they will multiply the effects of cuts last year that nearly terminated Space Radar and forced both programs to restructure. Experts say neither system is likely to meet its hoped-for launch date.