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GAO Report Cites Major NASA Project Delays

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 30, 2019
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GAO Report Cites Major NASA Project Delays

GAO Report to Congress: NASA Assessments of Major Projects
“The cost and schedule performance of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) portfolio of major projects continues to deteriorate. For this review, cost growth was 27.6 percent over the baselines and the average launch delay was approximately 13 months, the largest schedule delay since GAO began annual reporting on NASA’s major projects in 2009. This deterioration in cost and schedule performance is largely due to integration and test challenges on the James Webb Space Telescope (see GAO-19-189 for more information). The Space Launch System program also experienced significant cost growth due to continued production challenges. Further, additional delays are likely for the Space Launch System and its associated ground systems. Senior NASA officials stated that it is unlikely these programs will meet the launch date of June 2020, which already reflects 19 months of delays. These officials told GAO that there are 6 to 12 months of risk associated with that launch date.”

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2 responses to “GAO Report Cites Major NASA Project Delays”

  1. Tim Blaxland says:
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    So, how does it look if you take the JWST out? Ie, what’s the average cost/program overrun for the non-JWST projects?

    • fcrary says:
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      I’m not sure about NASA overall, but there was a National Academies report on large strategic (flagship) robotic missions, a year or two ago. The found that, if you take out some really bad missions (e.g. JWST and Curiosity), the rest don’t do too badly. Still over budget and behind schedule, on average. But not by a huge amount.

      On the other hand, they based cost increases on the approved budget at the start of Phase C. That means after preliminary designs had been reviewed and approved, and the mission was well-enough defined for a realistic cost estimate. But quite a bit of cost growth goes on before that. The formulation phases (A and B) are where the underestimates of the original concept, to sell the mission, show up, and that’s where the cost growth from expanded requirements shows up.