GAO Cites Major Flaws in NASA Budgeting and Risk Projections for Crew Capsules -- Update
12 July 2018 - 08:48AM
Dow Jones News
By Andy Pasztor
The two companies building commercial crew vehicles for NASA
have a "zero percent chance" of meeting current deadlines to start
regular flights ferrying U.S. astronauts into orbit, according to
the latest update from congressional watchdogs
Released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office, the
report highlights continuing schedule slips - and lack of a
reliable revised timeline - for certification of so-called space
taxis separately under development by Boeing Co. and Elon Musk's
Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
Instead of the current official early 2019 date, the report
concludes, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration may
have to wait roughly an extra year, and potentially many months
longer, before having dependable crew transportation to the
international space station.
The capsules already are years late, and both contractors have
been the focus of widespread criticism from lawmakers and industry
officials for announcing and then sticking with overly optimistic
schedules. Several weeks ago, NASA officials told the GAO and
reporters that schedule slips were in the offing without providing
specifics.
A NASA spokeswoman said the agency is "working closely with our
commercial partners and is preparing for potential schedule
adjustments normally experienced during spacecraft
development."
In a written response to the report, NASA said it wouldn't fully
follow all of the latest GAO recommendations but expects to be
"working to ensure that the partners' schedules and NASA's internal
assessments are in agreement."
Wednesday's report, however, goes beyond questioning the way
NASA develops schedules for the complex program. The GAO, among
other things, faults NASA's leadership for failing to keep
lawmakers adequately informed about budding delays. And it raises a
red flag that further delays could result in a gap in U.S. presence
on the orbiting laboratory.
Today, NASA purchases seats on Russian capsules launched by
Russian rockets to transport U.S. crews to and from the space
station. But those contracts are expected to end in November 2019.
The report says that if Boeing and SpaceX, as Mr. Musk's company is
called, experience additional schedule slips, NASA "does not have a
contingency plan for ensuring uninterrupted U.S. access."
The GAO also determined that agency managers are aware of
schedule revisions hammered out by each contractor, but NASA
officials "told us they lack confidence in those dates until they
are officially communicated" to the government.
The upshot, according to the GAO, is that NASA "is managing a
multibillion dollar program without confidence in its schedule
information as it approaches several big events," including the
first unmanned flight test.
In additional to specific technical challenges affecting crew
abort systems, parachutes and rocket fueling safeguards, both
companies have been scrambling for months to persuade NASA program
managers that the new transportation systems will be more than four
times safer than the space shuttle fleet when it was retired in
2011. NASA officials have said they could end up modifying that
requirement because it may be too difficult to meet.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 11, 2018 18:33 ET (22:33 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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