Continued Problems With KSC Management of Large Contracts

NASA OIG: Audit of NASA’s Engineering Services Contract at Kennedy Space Center
“The size and scope of Kennedy’s Engineering Contract has made managing the Contract particularly challenging. The cost and tasks included in the baseline and task order components of the Contract are not clearly defined, managers overseeing the Contract may lack appropriate expertise, and cost allocations are not clear. In addition, several tasks Vencore is performing on a cost-reimbursable basis appear more suitable for a fixed-price arrangement. Moreover, NASA has limited its ability to evaluate Vencore’s performance by including generic milestones and deliverables in some task orders, as well as employing evaluation standards that do not align with the Federal Acquisition Regulation or the Contract’s award-fee plan. As a result, NASA’s evaluations of Vencore’s performance do not consistently support the award-fee scores assigned or the resulting payments, and we question more than $450,000 in award-fee payments NASA made to Vencore between fiscal years 2011 and 2014.”
NASA OIG Audit of the Spaceport Command and Control System for SLS and Orion, earlier post
“The SCCS development effort has significantly exceeded initial cost and schedule estimates. Compared to fiscal year 2012 projections, development costs have increased approximately 77 percent to $207.4 million and the release of a fully operational version has slipped by 14 months from July 2016 to September 2017. In addition, several planned capabilities have been deferred because of cost and timing pressures, including the ability to automatically detect the root cause of specific equipment and system failures. Without this information, it will be more difficult for controllers and engineers to quickly diagnose and resolve issues. Although NASA officials believe the SCCS will operate safely without these capabilities, they acknowledge the reduced capability could affect the ability to react to unexpected issues during launch operations and potentially impact the launch schedule for the combined SLS-Orion system.”