Because of significant and increasing costs, actions have been taken by U.S. government agencies over the past several months to significantly restructure the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program. NPOESS has seen staggering cost growths, from an initial price tag of $6.5 billion to well over $13 billion before its most recent restructuring. The cost growths in NPOESS management, spacecraft, and certain remote sensing instruments were sufficiently large (>25%) that the Nunn-McCurdy process of the Department of Defense was triggered.