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Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

NASA’s Office of Inspector General has issued the report: NASA’s Management of the Space Launch System Booster and Engine Contracts.

In December 2022, Artemis I—an uncrewed Orion capsule powered by the SLS rocket—successfully completed a 25-day mission that included an elliptical orbit of the Moon.

“The mission came after launch delays of nearly 4 years and significant cost increases in developing the SLS,” the OIG report observes. “Specifically, NASA’s total Artemis campaign costs are projected to reach $93 billion through fiscal year 2025 with SLS Program costs representing $23.8 billion, or 26 percent, of that overall Artemis investment.”

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launches on the Artemis I flight test, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis I mission is the first integrated flight test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and ground systems. SLS and Orion launched at 1:47am ET from Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Heritage hardware assumptions

The OIG report notes: “To facilitate its lunar ambitions, NASA is adapting heritage hardware from the Space Shuttle era, including solid rocket boosters and RS-25 rocket engines, to power the Artemis campaign’s Space Launch System (SLS) that will launch the Orion crew capsule to the Moon.”

However, the NASA OIG report explains: “NASA continues to experience significant scope growth, cost increases, and schedule delays on its booster and RS-25 engine contracts, resulting in approximately $6 billion in cost increases and over 6 years in schedule delays above NASA’s original projections.”

Image credit: NASA OIG presentation of NASA information.

Interrelated issues

Furthermore, the OIG report stresses that these increases are caused by long-standing, interrelated issues such as assumptions that the use of heritage technologies from the Space Shuttle and Constellation Programs were expected to result in significant cost and schedule savings compared to developing new systems for the SLS.

But the OIG report states that the complexity of developing, updating, and integrating new systems along with heritage components “proved to be much greater than anticipated,” resulting in the completion of only 5 of 16 engines under the Adaptation contract and added scope and cost increases to the Boosters contract.

“While NASA requirements and best practices emphasize that technology development and design work should be completed before the start of production activities, the Agency is concurrently developing and producing both its engines and boosters, increasing the risk of additional cost and schedule increases,” the OIG document notes.

Space Launch System (SLS) Credit: NASA/MSFC

$L$: making it more affordable

Faced with continuing cost and schedule increases, the OIG report adds, “NASA is undertaking efforts to make the SLS more affordable. Under the RS-25 Restart and Production contract, NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne are projecting manufacturing cost savings of 30 percent per engine starting with production of the seventh of 24 new engines.”

However, those savings do not capture overhead and other costs, the OIG report points out, expenses that are currently estimated at $2.3 billion.

“Moreover, NASA currently cannot track per-engine costs to assess whether they are meeting these projected saving targets.”

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) topped by the Orion spacecraft at Launch Pad 39B, Friday, Nov. 11th at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Post-hurricane teams have begun walkdowns and inspections at the pad to assess the status of the rocket and spacecraft after the passage of Nicole. Launch of the uncrewed flight test is targeted for no earlier than Nov. 16 at 1:04 a.m. EST.
Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

Additionally, the OIG report says that NASA Marshall Space Flight Center procurement officials who oversee several key program contracts “are challenged by inadequate staff, their lack of experience, and limited opportunities to review contract documentation.”

NASA, OIG disappointment

In response to the draft of this report, NASA leadership “was disappointed to find that few of the clarifications offered by the Agency’s subject matter experts were incorporated herein” and thus “the directorate and the program do not concur with, nor endorse, the facts as presented in the body of the report.”

In response, the NASA OIG responded by taking issue with this NASA summary characterization and states it is disappointed that in its formal response, the space agency “failed to specify the facts in the report with which it disagrees.”

Image credit: NASA

NASA OIG 101

The NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducts audits, reviews, and investigations of NASA programs and operations to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement and to assist NASA management in promoting economy, efficiency, and effectiveness.

The OIG consists of auditors, analysts, specialists, investigators, attorneys, and support staff at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. and NASA Centers throughout the United States.

Image credit: NASA OIG

To access the report — NASA’s Management of the Space Launch System Booster and Engine Contracts — go to: https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-23-015.pdf