OIG Report on Extending ISS Operations Until 2024
Extending the Operational Life of the International Space Station Until 2024, NASA OIG
“Specifically, the ISS faces a risk of insufficient power generation due in part to faster-than-expected degradation of its solar arrays. Second, although most replacement parts have proven more reliable than expected, sudden failures of key hardware have occurred requiring unplanned space walks for repair or replacement. Third, with the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet NASA has a limited capacity to transport several large replacement parts to the Station should they be needed. While the ISS Program is actively working to mitigate these risks, anticipating the correct amount of replacement parts and transporting them to the ISS present major challenges to extending Station operations 10 or more years beyond its original expected service life.
The OIG also found the assumptions underlying the Agency’s budget projections for the ISS are overly optimistic and that its actual costs may be higher. NASA projects its annual budget for the ISS Program to grow from $3 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2014 to nearly $4 billion by FY 2020. However, ISS Program costs rose 26 percent between FYs 2011 and 2013 and an average of 8 percent annually over the life of the program. Moreover, much of the projected cost increase is attributable to higher transportation costs, and the OIG found unrealistic NASA’s current transportation estimates.”
“Moreover, much of the projected cost increase is attributable to
higher transportation costs, and the OIG found unrealistic NASA’s
current transportation estimates.”
Uh, unless they use SpaceX instead of the Russians or Boeing or Orbital…
In fact at a recent conference the Boeing rep repeatedly quizzed the SpaceX presenter on whether SpaceX could provide a bigger fairing for the Falcon Heavy! If THAT doesn’t get the old rumor mill started…
It sure would be nice to have a space shuttle
that could deliver large replacement components to ISS. Instead we have
two capsules being developed for a few years of crew rotation on an
aging space station, with no follow-on mission defined. Our
policymakers are nuts.
Hopefully Bigelow can make a go of its commercial space station effort, but right now I don’t understand what the CCDev vehicles are supposed to be doing once ISS goes away (the exact year of its inevitable demise is really irrelevant).
Anything sent up in the shuttle could be sent up by a Delta IV.
Theoretically, yes. Manoeuvring it up to the ISS is another matter. Boeing proposed a special PLF to do the job (which, IMO, should have been developed in parallel to the Shuttle run-down). However, all money needed to be diverted to Ares-I as costs and engineering problems spiralled out of control and, besides, the ISS was going to be abandoned in 2016, so why… bother…?
Oops. Thanks Dr Griffin!
While true, today we have Orbital’s Cygnus flying to ISS. If there were truly something which needed to fly to ISS, and if money was available, I’m sure Orbital could come up with a Cygnus derivative with shuttle payload bay type structural connections for a payload. Fly the thing on a Delta IV Heavy or perhaps a Falcon Heavy.
This would be quite similar to how the Russians have delivered some modules to ISS.
In theory, a space station could have been designed around expendable launchers. In reality, replacing ISS components requires both the payload capacity and unique capability of the now-retired space shuttle.
Consider that we don’t have to “replace” existing modules, we can simply add new ones designed for launch on the Falcon or Atlas.
Many items would have to be modified to fly on an expendable – solar panels and things were designed to fly in the Payload Bay. Things that “can be” sent up might not be economical to send up.
it’s true that redesigning an existing payload from a configuration designed for the cargo bay to one designed for a payload fairing is very expensive. The AMS is a case in point; without the Shuttle mission added by the Obama administration to launch it a complete rebuild would have been needed. But for a new payload that is not yet designed, there is TMK no difference in cost between launch on a conventional LV and launch in the Shuttle,
Bill Gerstenmeier already stated it was doubtful NASA would ever build another space station in LEO or be operationally responsible for one. To me that means leasing space in LEO from Bigelow after the BEAM tests are completed.
Something’s gotta give – I have to think that SLS is heading for cancellation given its unsustainable costs and the emergence of industry disruptors like
SpaceX. So, our post-ISS strategy will need to be redefined.
I hope it does get canx much sooner than later. It all depends on whether the next administration needs to continue this jobs program politically or not.
I’m thinking this SLS freight train might be too long and too big to be stopped before the 2020’s.
“I have to think that SLS is heading for cancellation given its unsustainable costs and the emergence of industry disruptors like SpaceX” If you could see the tooling at MAF for this thing and the back slapping congressional delegation from all over the country at the dedication, you would know that this puppy is going to be built. “Greatest vehicle of all time” or “Edsel” either way, we will own it and need to come up with what we want them to do with it.
When SLS/Orion is cancelled in four years the Republicans will say two things simultaneously: 1) They were right to cancel it because it was a wasteful “big government” idea, a pork barrel program started by the Obama administration, and simultaneously 2) it was a brilliant idea of Congress that would have “put America on Mars”, undermined by the intransigence and incompetence of the Obama administration.
The idea that Congress itself was responsible for this debacle will not even be considered.
The idea that American government would be more effective if people of differing views worked for compromise instead of fighting for power would be rejected as hopelessly naive.
There is a post-ISS strategy?? Lol
over the past 5 years, Bigelow has been quietly talking to people and nations that are interested in doing research on a private space station. they’ve got enough people on board (last I heard, 7 nations had signed agreements with them) to get their space station going. I think when SpaceX has demonstrated their capability to fly crew, it is likely we will see a Bigelow module launched soon thereafter.
Laying the groundwork to switch to leasing commercial space in LEO so they can have the lagrange point habitat?
I’d really love to know how this particular money sink became more expensive after construction ended, to the tune of 26%. Of course we can’t afford the SLS in a world where the Space Station is soaking up $4 billion a year. We couldn’t afford the space shuttle along side the ISS either at that cost. You couldn’t afford any program where the ISS costs that much. ISS went from becoming a part of HSF to being the beast that ate HSF.
Just toss it in the Pacific already, good grief. If it were producing meaningful science justifying $3-4 billion annually, sure, let’s keep it. But it’s not, and it certainly isn’t being used to prototype, test or, develop much of anything applicable to our next destinations. This thing shouldn’t fly past 2018, much less 2024. But that won’t stop it’s boosters from pushing to 2028 and beyond.
Drop this antique into the ocean, and the SLS can pay for it’s payloads and go pretty much anywhere twice a year. Keep funding it, and we’ll have one manned space program that flies to actually interesting places bi-annually, and one manned space program that supports, third and forth rate science and does little else. Pick one. I know which one I support. Even sending an Orion to the most boring lump of rock in the solar system would more significant than spending another decade finding how squid copulate in microgravity or some nonsense like that.
I thought CASIS was working on the $3 billion golf ball this year.
An actual experiment would cost considerably more than $15K. I am no CASIS partisan and do _not_ think a single contractor should act as a “gateway” to getting an experiment in space. I actually think the service should be split between CASIS, USRA and possibly others to permit some good old fashioned competition. On the other hand it is unfair and demeaning to ridicule CASIS for one relatively cheap PR stunt without looking through the full list of selected payloads.
That still would not be enough funding. You just refuse to understand just how much the pork premium is and what it is actually costing us in opportunity costs.
“finding how squid copulate in microgravity or some nonsense like that.”
Yes but the youtube video of that would get so many hits! I agree with you JN3, it is time to do something else. The space station is politically easier to deorbit than is SLS. Since we are going to build that rocket, it seems prudent to get moving on that. The next space station will be a hotel by LEO private companies.
I wonder about that. The headlines are going to scream ‘NASA’s Wasted $100 Billion- Now Plans To Bury Mistakes in the Ocean”.
sub: “Your taxes at work?”
If we cannot learn to make human spaceflight productive in LEO there is no possibility we can do so on the Moon, Mars, or the outer solar system where costs are orders of magnitude harder. If we give up the ISS we will not be stuck in LEO. We will be stuck on the ground.
Yeah… no. We’ve been hearing this song and dance since I was in diapers playing with LEGO Space Shuttles. The never ending saga of how NASA needs the ISS or Space Station Freedom to learn to live in space, to learn the effect of microgravity on this and that, to chart effects on human health, so on and so forth.
How’s that going for them? Any breakthrough’s lately? What’s the time table?
Really. Time’s run out for this line of thinking. This particular well of funding has run dry and any space program that continues down it in the future is not a space program worth supporting or funding.
Hundreds of billions of dollars and decades later, NASA has a huge pile of data. Time to draw on that as we go BEO.
And besides, nobody is talking about the outer solar system. We sending a manned mission to Europa this century? Someone alert me to how the problem of exposure to lethal doses of radiation was solved. We’re talking the Moon, Mars, some asteroids, and maybe martian Moons. Jaunts that have an upper limit of around 6 months to one year in space, which for the most part will not be continuous.
NASA has that data from the ISS, from the Space Shuttle and from the Russians. The only thing that will stick us on the ground is convincing ourselves that we need to study these in an isolated LEO environment any longer. After this many years of charting the effect that space travel has on human health, it’s a minor risk.
Running a spacecraft in space for years without ground maintenance is clearly somewhat harder than the scientists and engineers originally thought. Such a good thing that we’re finding this out now in LEO where no lives are seriously endangered rather than in the void between worlds where it could easily lead to a catastrophic LOC event.
IMO, this key learning alone justifies the ISS.
Well, the ISS is already a product of lessons learned from 10 years of operating MIR, which was in turn derived from lessons learned from the earlier Salyut space stations. the US also had some experience with Spacelab on Shuttle flights, plus the earlier Skylab space station.
the relatively few operational problems and hardware failures on the ISS is an excellent demonstration of our in-space prowess, and each problem we have now is something we can learn from to do better in the future!
No it doesn’t. The ISS was built over what… a decade and change? Meaning by the time it’s last pieces were in orbit, it’s first pieces had been orbiting the earth since before 2000.
When exactly are we going to ever do that again for a manned space vehicle, except for another space station (in other words something we’re not going to build again).
A Mars Transfer Vehicle, or really a transfer vehicle to anywhere, one use out of it under most projected plans. And even if somehow a resuable Mars Transfer Vehicle became a budgetary reality – all it required was resupply, refuel and routine repairs after every round trip, we’re talking about something that would be built inside of one year on a handful of155t SLS launches, be around half to two thirds the mass of the space station, and would have a projected lifetime of probably around a decade.
In othe words unless we’re going to build a Mars Transfer Vehicle in orbit over a decade and then fly it, the space station model is inapplicable to any future destinations. If it’s not reusable, it only has to be good for the transfer to mars, orbiting mars during the stay, and the return trip. That’s it. That’s about three years. If it’s reusable, NASA will do what… three expeditions a decade maybe? Three uses out of it. Either way a Space Station with 10-20 year old components going into what is planned to be it’s third, perhaps fourth decade… nothing is to be learned from that.
The time it took to build is meaningless. What’s the point is what we’re learning how to operate and maintain equipment in space for long periods.
Are the estimates of running the ISS from 2020 to 2024 sensible? Include cost of NASA having to develop a vehicle to reboost the ISS.
Well! It has to be managed! 🙂