NASA’s moon plan gets knocked

NASA’s plan to put humans on the moon by 2024 might be in jeopardy after a recent federal report showed the agency has repeatedly masked the true cost of its behemoth rocket as the launch schedule continues to slip.

The Space Launch System rocket — the backbone of NASA’s five-year moon strategy — has faced continued delays and burgeoning costs since Boeing was awarded the contract in 2012. But the state of the rocket is much worse than many thought, according to a 60-page report released by the Government Accountability Office.

The cost has gone up almost 30 percent, or nearly $2 billion, the office found. And though NASA has continued to report that the rocket can be launched on its first flight without humans by the end of 2020, the GAO said this might not happen until June 2021.

NASA has vehemently defended the program, saying the federal watchdog focused on worst-case scenarios and failed to acknowledge the complexity of what was being built.

“Sending astronauts on lunar and Mars exploration missions, sustaining them for weeks at a time outside the protection of Earth’s magnetosphere, and ensuring their safety during the return to Earth from deep space velocities are extremely challenging engineering endeavors,” NASA wrote. “Our teams continue to rise to this challenge with the manufacturing and testing of the first elements of this system.”

The SLS rocket is vital to NASA’s plans to put humans on the lunar surface four years early, in 2024 instead of 2028 — a project now known as Artemis. The space agency is trying to convince Congress to provide an extra $1.6 billion in the budget year that begins Oct. 1. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine last week said a total of $20 billion to $30 billion would be needed.

But the report released Wednesday is not good news for Artemis, according to Keith Cowing, editor of NASA Watch, a website devoted to space news.

“This report was done according to the program of record, which was working toward a 2028 lunar landing — not the new 2024 date,” he said. “One can only imagine how all of the issues identified by the GAO fare against a rush to place a human on the lunar surface four years earlier than planned.”

Problem-plagued

Boeing was awarded a contract in 2012 to build two SLS cores for NASA, one for the first, uncrewed Orion flight and one for the second that would carry Americans around the moon. U.S. astronauts last landed on the moon in 1972.

At the time of the contract award, the uncrewed flight was expected to launch in 2017.

But seven years later, the GAO reported Wednesday that the true cost of the program is unknown — a problem that occurred because the space agency has not been transparent.

In defending this notion, the GAO pointed out that NASA’s cost estimate only reflects SLS’ first launch. Additionally, NASA has diverted $782 million of program costs to future missions to “obscure cost growth,” the office said.

“Essentially, NASA is holding the baseline costs steady, while reducing the scope of work included in current cost estimates,” the report stated.

NASA disagreed, saying it “has done its best to maintain transparency.”

“NASA accepts that the fre

quent recurrence of continuing resolutions, along with changes in program direction and appropriated funding, lead to uncertainty and inefficiency that can adversely impact our programs’ and projects’ planning and execution,” NASA stated in a letter to the GAO.

Last year, the GAO released a report blaming the delays and cost increases on Boeing, saying the company underestimated the scope of the work — and therefore the skills and workers required to complete it — and continually failed to provide NASA with realistic estimates for schedule and cost.

The Wednesday report reiterated that point, stating that Boeing only hired 100 technicians at the beginning of the project “in part to keep costs low,” when they needed more than twice that number to maintain the schedule.

But the problem is not just Boeing’s, the Wednesday report stated.

Even as the contractor struggles to complete SLS, NASA has continued to rate the company’s performance as “excellent” and, in some cases, “very good.” Between July 2014 and September 2018, NASA has awarded Boeing award fees totaling $271 million, even as schedules continued to slip.

On one occasion, agency officials even noted the extreme impact the delays have had on the flight schedule while providing the company an award for their work.

Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the Orion spacecraft, has also received award fees despite increases in program costs.

“While both the SLS and Orion contractors have received the majority of available award fee in each award fee period, the programs have not always achieved overall desired outcomes,” the GAO report stated.

Headed to the moon?

When President Donald Trump directed the agency in March to put humans on the moon in just five years, the question of SLS was at the forefront of policymakers’ minds: Would the rocket be ready in time to meet the launch deadlines?

Bridenstine wasn’t sure, telling Congress even before Trump’s announced acceleration that the agency was studying the feasibility of launching Orion via a commercial rocket instead. NASA soon determined that wasn’t possible within the directed timeline, and Bridenstine said the agency would figure out how to speed up the construction of SLS.

In April, he said that NASA had found a way to ensure that the first launch is only six months behind schedule. He said the agency would come up with a commercial backup plan in case SLS continues to be a problem. Wednesday’s GAO report determined it likely would be a year behind schedule, and it’s not clear if NASA has that backup plan in place.

The federal watchdog offered four recommendations to NASA, including changing the cost estimate and re-evaluating the way contractors are incentivized.

NASA told the GAO that the program has experienced challenges, but that they are not insurmountable.

“NASA believes that it is essential to take the time to effectively resolve first-time build challenges now, which leads to near-term schedule and cost challenges, but yields significant benefits for out-year flight element manufacturing,” the agency wrote. “NASA’s goal for returning humans to cislunar space remains on track.”

But many, including Cowing of NASA Watch, have said they don’t think humans will ever fly aboard SLS. And this recent report suggests that money cannot fix what has happened.

“It would seem that more money is not going to solve endemic problems in the SLS/Orion program,” Cowing said.