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An artist who represents NASA's Space Launch System rocket. (Courtesy of NASA.)
The powerful new rocket that NASA has been developing for years in its quest for the moon and Mars will require significant additional funding that would double the original project cost to nearly $ 9 billion, according to a scathing government report released on Wednesday. .
NASA's Inspector General's office found that Boeing, the main contractor, had already spent $ 5.3 billion for the rocket program and that it would have to spend the remaining contractual funds from the project. here the beginning of next year, three years in advance, without delivering a single step.
The rocket also suffers from production delays, noted the IG. The first flight of the Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft was supposed to be a test mission without astronauts by the end of last year, the first crewed mission being scheduled for 2021. These launches however, were delayed by two and a half years. and can be moved back further, says the report.
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The report is a radical impeachment for a program that has been suffering for years of delays and cost overruns and has been ridiculed by a Senate launching system that serves more as a program for employment in major congressional districts. .
Despite these setbacks, NASA and members of Congress supported the project, saying it was critical that the agency's long-term goals move humans into the depths of space.
During a recent visit to the NASA rocket plant in New Orleans in August, Jim Bridenstine, the agency's administrator, praised the project. "What we are doing here is something that has never been done before," he said. "We are launching the largest rocket with the largest payload capacity ever. He's going to send our crew vehicles to far-flung spaces where we have never transported human beings. This is a brand new project of great scale, unparalleled in the world and will remain so for a very long time. "
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In a statement, Boeing said, "An unprecedented rocket program has inherent challenges. But he added that "the program described in the OIG report does not represent the program of the space launch system today".
Boeing has already implemented the report's recommendations, the company said. The aerospace contractor said he had "restructured our management team to better align with the challenges of the current program, and we are refining our approaches and tools to ensure a successful transition from development to production ".
A growing commercial space industry has progressed more effectively than the government in building and launching rockets. Earlier this year, SpaceX, the company founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, launched the world's most powerful Falcon Heavy rocket. Blue Origin, the company of Jeffrey P. Bezos, is also developing a powerful rocket called New Glenn. (Bezos owns the Washington Post.)
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These two rockets are reusable, which means that their propeller stages return to Earth, whether on land or on a ship at sea, so that they can be used in other launches. The SLS, on the other hand, would be used once, and its booster would fall into the ocean after its flight.
Increased competition could mean increased monitoring of SLS.
"As the rocket thunder continues in the United States, whether owned or operated by private interests or governments, there will be more and more comparisons to determine which rocket can perform each mission and at what cost, "said Phil Larson, former spokesman for SpaceX and today dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The IG said that NASA "lacks visibility" on the contract costs of the program because Boeing has combined all its activities – building two-stage booster and the top floor – in the same issue. contract line. As a result, the report states that "the agency is not able to determine the cost of a single step", making it difficult to determine how much it should spend for future steps.
The report also accuses NASA of "inflating" Boeing's performance scores "resulting in excessive compensation costs". According to the report, "Boeing's poor performance is the main reason for cost increases and significant schedule delays."
He stated that the company "systematically underestimated the scope of the work to be done" and the staff needed to perform it. At one point, while Boeing was trying to hire more staff, NASA had increased its funding by $ 10 million a month to fund additional work crews. "However, despite the increase in the number of working hours, the project schedule remains delayed," the report says.
The SLS rocket was born from a previous NASA program called Constellation under the George W. Bush administration. President Barack Obama finally ended the program after an independent commission found that cost increases and schedule delays made it "unsustainable".
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