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The office of the Inspector General of NASA issued Wednesday morning a severe audit on Boeing and the space agency. It details Boeing's delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns for building the key components of a next-generation rocket for the Moon and Mars missions.
The report also accused NASA of being too generous in its Boeing assessments, which resulted in dubious payments.
As part of a contract with NASA, Boeing is building two of the main stages of the Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket that will carry the Orion probe that will take astronauts into deep space. The rocket components will be assembled and tested at the Kennedy Space Center, before launching from the Space Coast.
But the project is late and well over budget, according to the BIG report, partly because of "Boeing's poor performance".
"With $ 5.3 billion spent in July 2018, NASA expects Boeing to exhaust the current value of the contract by early 2019, almost three years ahead of the end date of the contract. . [exploration upper stage]"Said Ridge Bowman, director of NASA's BIG.
At the current rate, the report revealed that Boeing would spend at least $ 8.9 billion by 2021 – "double the amount initially forecast – while delivery of the first major phase has decreased by two-and-a-half years between June 2017 and December 2019 and may fall further. "
During a call to reporters last week, John Shannon, Vice President and Program Director of Boeing Space Launch System, said the project was on track to deliver the first key stage of the rocket to the Center. Kennedy Space by the end of the year. be integrated with other components.
But the report challenged this estimate, saying Boeing would need a $ 1.2 billion injection via a renegotiated contract with NASA to reach its goal of delivering to Space Coast in December 2019, and then stealing the money. Test in June 2020. count the billions needed to ensure the delivery of the other components under the Boeing contract.
"Given the development delays, we concluded that NASA would not be able to meet its objectives. [Exploration Mission-1] launch window currently planned between December 2019 and June 2020, "says the report.
Boeing says the report is outdated and does not reflect the changes Boeing has made to correct past mistakes.
Boeing spokeswoman Patricia Soloveichik said in a statement that the report "calls for program or operational changes already implemented".
"An unprecedented rocket program has inherent challenges; develop the first unit of a system capable of transporting humans safely in space, even more, "she wrote in an email. "We have restructured our management team to better adapt to the current challenges of the program and we are refining our approaches and tools to ensure a successful transition from development to production."
According to the OIG report, NASA also played a role in the program's problems by managing the contract badly and by lacking visibility into Boeing's expenses, which meant that NASA did not know how much it cost a single step basic rocket.
The space agency was also found to "inflate the contractor's score and lead to overly generous tender costs" over six evaluation periods since 2012, the year the contract was awarded to Boeing. This resulted in a management fee of $ 323 million, of which nearly $ 64 million was deemed doubtful by the OIG audit.
In the end, delays jeopardize the future of the project, the report concludes. The SLS rocket will not be re-used, but will be built several times for future missions, including a potential science mission to Jupiter's Moon, Europa in 2022. This schedule may also slip.
However, improvements are to be expected: the OIG report acknowledged that Boeing had taken "positive steps" to stay on track, including "making key leadership changes; request revisions to Boeing's management, financial and estimating systems; the addition of detailed performance evaluations routine; and change the procurement process to improve. "
Want more news from the space? Follow Go For Launch on Facebook. Contact the reporter at [email protected] or 407-420-5660; Twitter @ChabeliH
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