By 
November 10th, 2020
Illustration of the Gateway. Built with commercial and international partners, NASA says the Gateway is critical to sustainable lunar exploration and will serve as a model for future missions to Mars.
Credit: NASA
A just-issued NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG)/Office of Audits report takes a hard look at the space agency’s plans to build the Gateway—essentially, a small space station—to provide a staging location for lunar missions and future deep space operations.
Among comments made by the OIG, two central take away messages are:
— Schedule Delays for the Gateway Have Pushed Anticipated Launch Date into Mid-2024 with No Schedule Margin
— Schedule Delays and Associated Cost Increases Are Primarily the Result of Evolving Gateway Requirements
Credit: NASA
Still-evolving requirements
The report explains that development schedules for both the Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) have been negatively impacted by the Agency’s still-evolving Gateway requirements, including NASA’s decision to co-manifest and launch the two elements on the same commercial rocket rather than separately as initially intended.
Given this decision, the PPE is likely to launch at least 17 months behind its original date of December 2022 while HALO has 2 to 5 months of schedule risk, potentially moving its launch readiness date further into 2024.
Compounding these issues is the 2024 lunar mandate that drove the accelerated development schedule in the first place and resulted in a lack of schedule margin in the Gateway Program.
The report — NASA’s Management of the Gateway Program for Artemis Missions, dated November 10, 2020 — can be viewed at:
Posted in Space News
