GAO Anticipates First SLS Launch Date In 2021
GAO: Human Space Exploration: Persistent Delays and Cost Growth Reinforce Concerns over Management of Programs
“In November 2018, within one year of announcing an up to 19-month delay for the three programs – the Space Launch System (SLS) vehicle, the Orion spacecraft, and supporting ground systems – NASA senior leaders acknowledged the revised date of June 2020 is unlikely. Any issues uncovered during planned integration and testing may push the launch date as late as June 2021. Moreover, while NASA acknowledges about $1 billion in cost growth for the SLS program, it is understated. This is because NASA shifted some planned SLS scope to future missions but did not reduce the program’s cost baseline accordingly. When GAO reduced the baseline to account for the reduced scope, the cost growth is about $1.8 billion. In addition, NASA’s updated cost estimate for the Orion program reflects 5.6 percent cost growth. The estimate is not complete, however, as it assumes a launch date that is 7 months earlier than Orion’s baseline launch date. If the program does not meet the earlier launch date, costs will increase further.”
Keith’s note: Of course, this report was done according to the program of record which was working toward a 2028 lunar landing – not the new 2024 date. One can only imagine how all of the issues identified by the GAO fare against a rush to place a human on the lunar surface 4 years earlier than planned. It would seem that more money is not going to solve endemic problems in the SLS/Orion program.
NASA is not especially happy with this report. In NASA’s response to GAO, HEOMD AA Bill Gerstenmaier says “The GAO report repeatedly projects worst-case schedule outcome. While NASA appreciates GAO’s need to be candid in its review, the Agency does take exception to the unnecessary negative language used in the report title and section headings and the lack of acknowledgement of progress the Agency has made.”
Some of the report’s highlights:
“… The program has no schedule margin between the end of core stage production and the start of the green run test, and is tracking risks that may delay the test schedule. For example, as the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) found in its October 2018 report, the Stage Controller–the core stage’s command and control hardware and software needed to conduct the green run test–is 18 months behind schedule and may slip further.13 Any additional delays with the development of the core stage and stage controller will further delay the start of the green run test. In addition, the SLS program has no schedule margin between the green run test and delivery of the core stage to Kennedy Space Center for integration to address any issues that may arise during testing.
… Boeing underestimated the staffing levels required to build the core stage in the time available. … The build plans for the core stage were not adequately mature when the contractor began work on the hardware itself, which led to additional delays. … Boeing officials explained that they did not anticipate any changes from NASA for the loads–impacts and stresses of mass, pressure, temperature, and vibration that the vehicle will experience–following the program’s critical design review, but instead NASA provided three significant updates to those loads. … Boeing officials stated that it has been challenging to execute NASA’s development approach that called for the first set of hardware built to be used for the initial launch. Boeing officials stated that they are more used to an approach in which they use the first hardware built to qualify the design and that hardware is never flown.
… NASA’s current approach for reporting cost growth misrepresents the cost performance of the program and thus undermines the usefulness of a baseline as an oversight tool. … NASA does not have a cost and schedule baseline for SLS beyond the first flight.19 As a result, NASA cannot monitor or track costs shifted beyond EM-1 against a baseline.
… The Orion program is not on schedule to meet the June 2020 launch date for the first mission due to delays with the European Service Module and ongoing component issues with the avionics systems for the crew module, including issues discovered during testing. … The Orion program has reported development cost growth but is not measuring that growth using a complete cost estimate. … By not estimating costs through its baseline launch date, the Orion program is limiting the NASA Associate Administrator’s insight into how the program is performing against the baseline.
… The Mobile Launcher schedule deteriorated since the December 2017 replan due to problems with finalizing construction work prior to moving it to the Vehicle Assembly Building.”
It will probably fly for only a single time like Ares I before being sent to the scrap heap.
For the good of the country, Democrats winning the White House is more important than anything, even if it means sacrificing SLS and Artemis (coming from someone who works on SLS at KSC).
Why? Life seems to be good under President Trump? My income is up and my taxes are down and NASA is going the Moon again because of him. How could it get any better?
I won’t get into the other topics because this is a space forum. Judging by his tweet, Trump has apparently lost interest in going to the moon, and his selection of using Pell Grant money to pay for it has pretty much killed any hope for going back soon.
President Trump just tweeted what many other folks are thinking, why is NASA making such a big deal about doing something it did decades ago. The Moon should be a cake walk for NASA, all it needs is a lander. Instead NASA is acting like its nearly impossible to return to it.
It is quite difficult to return to the surface of the moon when SLS/Orion are so lame that Orion can’t get into a low lunar orbit and return to earth. So this “requires” Gateway, to literally hide that fact from everyone. So now they have to sell Gateway as something useful instead of the unnecessary tollbooth it really is.
On top of that, the orbit for Gateway means that the lander has to have much more delta-V than it would if it were starting from low lunar orbit. That makes the lander harder to do.
This whole thing is a giant cluster because of SLS/Orion.
It’s also a 2 or 3 day transit from the Gateway to the lunar surface!
I suspect you are correct that most people think this should be a cake walk. But then most people would be “wrong”.
This “return” is almost as difficult as the original mission. We are (hopefully) not returning for the same reason, not to plant boots but to plant people (for the long term occupation of the Moon, not graves). We cannot simply rebuild the LEM etc ; we need new spacecraft. New spacecraft are not “a cake walk” to design/build. We live in a very different world (much more risk averse, much more knowledgeable), making design/build much more complex than the 60s. Admittedly we also live in a world with a very capable and vibrant commercial wing (outside of NASA) to help get the job done.
New lunar landers and space suits do not make things any harder than Apollo. NASA also needed a new lunar lander and space suits back then. We are, it seems, going back for a 2024 landing simply to get Americans on the surface. There is a requirement to simultaneous work towards a sustainable presence, but I don’t think that’s a huge difference.
And NASA has many, many advantages over the situation in the early 1960s. They were literally starting from scratch. When Kennedy announced the lunar landing goal, we had never put a person in orbit, and only sent one person on a suborbital ballistic hop above the atmosphere. And at the parts level, everything from computers to metallurgy has improved by orders of magnitude.
The only thing which makes it harder, as you put it, is that “[w]e live in a very different world (much more risk averse, much more knowledgeable), making design/build much more complex than the 60s.” Do we? To some extent, definitely. But how much of that aversion to risk is the national culture, and how much is NASA’s institutional culture? I’d guess about half of that problem is inside NASA, not outside it.
does that mean you’re in the “cake walk” group ?
I’m in the “not a cake walk” group.
Don’t put words into my mouth or make things up. I never said anything about a “cake walk.” I’m firmly in the “it should be easier than it was the first time, but easier doesn’t mean easy” camp. Last time, it was five and a half years of hard work to develop a lunar lander (plus FY2019 $23 billion for development and production of 15 of them.) So I think, today, developing a similar lander it should take less than five years of hard work and less than $23 billion. For example, two years of hard work and a bit under $10 billion. I wouldn’t call that a cake walk.
NASA’s aversion to accepting risk is a huge issue. It drives me nuts that we continue to fly astronauts on Soyuz and hope for the best because it’s out of our control while dragging out certification for the Commercial Crew vehicles. The difference, in my mind, is that NASA has no real control over Soyuz safety because we’re forced to trust the Russians. But that same level of trust is clearly not extended to Commercial Crew. This drives up “oversight” which is clearly causing a portion of the delays that we’re seeing.
I was at a planetary small spacecraft conference in April, and one of the keynote speakers made a very good point. This isn’t about accepting risk, or being risk averse. It’s about risk management. And the simple fact is that major NASA projects don’t do a very good job of that. They will pour resources into studying and mitigating ever risk they can do something about, but write waivers for the things they just can’t do anything about (usually after pouring resources into studying the issue to determine that there is nothing they can do.) That can mean putting time and effort into eliminating a 0.05% risk, when there is an equally serious risk with a 1% of happening which they simply accept because they can’t avoid it. That just isn’t a productive use of resources.
That was not an original thought by Trump. He was simply regurgitating something he heard on Fox News — if it’s on Fox News, it must be appealing to his base.
Interesting point.
But isnt that what they are saying? “Sure, we can go, just need some pocket change to upgrade a few things?”
Funny how you bring up Trump needs to be defeated in 2020 “for the good of the country” but then state you won’t get into other topics.
It was space-related because I said getting rid of Trump was more important than keeping SLS/Orion/Artimis (but I suspect some or all of them would still be around after Trump is gone).
You actually believe there’s a significant difference between the Democrats and Republicans?
They’re all self serving and only concerned about getting re-elected. That’s why SLS keeps getting funded with the help of Sen. Shelby and his Alabama jobs program. Let’s add more to the >$20 trillion debt.
:rollseyes:
How about getting rid of Gerst?
I simply wonder how we get from here to there.
At some point SLS will need to be publically decried; a scapegoat will need to be found (anybody see “Chernobyl on TeeVee? Similar process). At the same time, a story that goes like “it wasn’t a completely wrong direction; a lot came out of the effort” will need to be concocted. Mr. Shelby is 84 years old, not necessarily precluding a re-election.
Alabama politics are a mess right now, with Sessions and Moore stirring things about. And Sen. Shelby’s influence over important banking legislation dwarfs his space presence.
Just out of morbid curiosity, has anyone ever done a correlation study of funding for NASA centers and the number of terms their local congressmen have served? It’s the ones who have been around a long time who have the influence and committee chairmanships. Whoever replaces Mr. Shelby (and he would be 93 at the end of his next term, even if he’s elected another time) will probably be every bit as pro-MSFC. But freshman senators generally don’t have nearly that sort of impact.
It might be wise to start planning to use EM-2 as the first lunar landing flight. With the current anemic development rate expecting to get em-1,2 and 3 built and flown by 2024 seems unlikely. Have they even decided who is building the service module for em-3 and beyond given esa is only obligated to provided the first two.
Landing on the moon on EM-2 would be a suicide mission with so many untested components. And going to the moon by 2024 ain’t gonna happen.
Which is probably why the first American astronauts returning to the Moon won’t be wearing NASA patches on their spacesuits.
No, they’ll wear NASA patches (required for the license?) along with SpaceX, etc. Clearly sounds like a corporate advertising opportunity ?
Perhaps the question is will the next astronauts landing on the Moon be American ?
With China’s Long March 5 in development hell their program has stalled, giving Starship and others more time to mature.
https://spacenews.com/china…
Meanwhile, in Cocoa FL
https://twitter.com/FLSpace…
Yes, and things may get worst given the massive protests in Hong Kong recently. China may need to focus on other things if those protests start to extend to the mainland.
Yup…the situation in mainland China is not as solid as most observers think.
There’s a guy in the WH who’s just not right in the head.
Yet hightly educated people on this very blog will respond to criticism by asking if your own economic situation is good, or not.
Folks in the PRC are no different.
I wonder if the folks in the mainland even know about the protests?
NASA patches are not required for a launch license. The existing commercial astronauts that have flown on SpaceShipOne and SpaceshipTwo have not worn them so why would commercial lunar astronauts?
Now I could see them be required to wear American flags by the FAA CST on spacesuits, to identify the launching state under the OST. The only way I them wearing aNASA patch would be if NASA actually hired them to work as astronauts for the agency for the duration of the mission, assuming NASA has that authority.
The precedents aren’t completely on your side (although I agree with you.) When I saw rb1957’s comment, I checked on some stock photos of astronauts. A number of foreign nationals flew on the Space Shuttle as payload specialist (e.g. Ulf Merbold or Sultan bin Salman Al Saud.) They were not working for NASA, but the photos show them wearing NASA logos on their shirts. Now, that might be related to the fact that they were flying on a NASA spacecraft. But it could also be something NASA would expect from commercial astronauts on a NASA-funded mission.
If NASA is paying for the flight then NASA could make that a requirement. In terms of the foreign astronauts, I expect it is because that NASA was providing the flight and paying for it. But if it’s a private funded flight like DearMoon than NASA wouldn’t have any basis for requiring it.
It will be interesting to see Mr. Ferguson uniform on the Starliner CST-100 test flight. He’ll be an astronaut working for a private company, on a privately owned and operated vehicle, but on a flight chartered and entirely paid for by NASA.
As far as #dearMoon, I’m not sure uniforms and logo patches are in keeping with the customer’s intent. Mr. Maezawa plans on taking along artists, and that’s not a group known for wearing uniforms or corporate logos.
No. But ESA has expressed a willingness to build the third service module. But that depends on whether or not they need to send Airbus more money and whether or not they owe NASA more money for ISS operations or something. Funding for the first two Orion service modules is contorted to say the least.
Yes, ESA will build as many service modules as we pay themto build.
It’s not quite that simple. We talk about how much it matters for NASA to spend money in the right states. But ESA’s problem is formal. If France contributes 28% of ESA’s budget, ESA must spend 28% of its budget in France. It’s more complicated than that, and subcontractors in different countries don’t make it simpler. But where ESA can spend money does depend on that country’s contribution.
That could complicate ESA builds of Orion service modules. What if, when the time rolls around, they are already spending the right amount in the countries with the relevant Airbus facilities? I suspect they will figure something out, but it might involve France increasing their voluntary contribution or Airbus juggling subcontractors or something similar.
True, it would get a bit complicated, but as you note they would work it out. But that also illustrates the advantages that private industry has in doing it.
Wonder how Brexit will factor into ESA’s workflow ?
Well, it isn’t going to help. ESA actually isn’t an agency of the European Union. It’s a separate treaty organization with largely overlapping membership. At the moment, Norway and Switzerland are members of ESA but not the EU. The United Kingdom will remain a member of ESA after they leave the EU.
But… There are a whole lot of related research grant programs which are EU funded. One of the big organizations for coordinating planetary science research (and putting together proposals for ESA planetary missions), Europlanet, is very definitely a part of the EU. And the United Kingdom’s priorities for voluntary contributions and votes on the overall budget will definitely be affected by Brexit.
The despite ESA and the EU technically being separate, whole thing is going to be a mess. And that’s true of many things associated with Brexit. The last time someone tried to separate closely coupled economies was when the Soviet Union came apart. That mess took a decade to settle out (assuming you believe it ever did…)
Quoting from the executive summary:
It later notes in the recommendations:
and says that NASA concurred.
Yet, the report also talks about Boeing’s attempt to hit what appears to have become a rapidly moving target as they had to redesign the core stage to meet NASA’s 3 changes to the projected loads that came after the critical design review. I agree that an under-performing Contractor should not be getting awarded bonuses reserved for high performance, but I am curious if a deep dive into what happened could determine whether / which Contractors were unable to meet schedule and cost for their screw-ups or NASA’s. While NASA is busy re-baselining costs and schedules, they may need to also re-baseline their Contractor expectations based on all the change orders NASA issued to them.
I understand the structure used for assembly was not designed or made correctly and had to be modified or completely remade.
They also had problems with the friction stir welding.
Apparently the core stage engine module has been very difficult to manufacture having been designed in such a way that makes it almost impossible to access.
These are Boeing caused delays.
That’s not to say NASA hasn’t caused problems too.
“They also had problems with the friction stir welding.”
Perhaps they should have called SpaceX for tips? /s
Nah. You can get pretty good bubble balances over at Home Depot.
A question for Gerst then… who has historically been closer to the mark on cost & schedule outcomes for SLS – NASA or GAO? I think GAO a good basis for their “negative language.”
NASA leadership under Gerst long ago gave up any pretense of welcoming the messenger of bad news. Real news too. Useful news. Major shift was around 2010 under Gerst’s housecleaning. The messengers were eliminated, tasks, assessments, offices and all since then. That Gerst does not control GAO and the IG among a few independent stragglers must be bothering him so much to have gone and critiqued the critiquers so.
Gerst once called SLS “fragile”, he’s so paranoid another cancellation happen over criticism. Imagine that, a program formulated and executed with billions that he himself sees as weak, perhaps easily ended by bad news. Who created such a fragile program it can’t take some criticism?
Sigh… more bad news. How did it come to this? I suspect the next humans on the lunar surface – maybe late 2020s or early 2030s will either be Chinese Taikonauts, or private sector crews. NASA seems to be furiously going nowhere.
OK, here is my (layman’s) solution of the dilemma of how to get to the moon in the fastest way possible and by the cheapest method possible – Faster and Cheaper, possibly even better in the long term.
The only way to have enough money to get this done is to minimize expenses on all other Human Space Flight activities possible. However, having said that, it does not really make sense to torpedo the ISS, which has already been bought and paid for, all it takes now is maintenance, so that should remain as a National Laboratory for the foreseeable future.
NASA should announce immediately that the Lunar Gateway is no longer being considered or funded, it just is not on the critical path to establish a lunar base. NASA should further announce that their objective is to establish a National Laboratory on the lunar surface. This would match up with the ISS as a National Laboratory in Low Earth Orbit. So that is their objective, it will allow members of congress to have some talking points on how great such a Laboratory will be (as opposed to just landing and taking off).
NASA should also announce that the SLS and Orion are not integral to their vision. If congress insists on building these two dinosaurs, then NASA of course has to comply, but at every opportunity it should remind congress and the public that these two pieces of hardware are no longer necessary to the vision of establishing a National Laboratory on the surface of the moon. And if directed to continue their involvement with these programs, then they should do the least possible to ensure they are complying with the direction of congress.
NASA should go all in with both SpaceX and Blue Origin, and should encourage speedy development of their respective systems by large financial contributions and rewards. And I mean large. A manned landing on the moon should be worth at least $5B (a bargain given the current NASA estimate) and cargo a similar large amount. This would spur both companies to a race to complete this. NASA should also lessen the influence of the ASAP panel, perhaps the recent directive to reduce advisory panels will help in that. Astronauts would be sponsored by private interests, and not be Government employees. They would sign a waiver of risk, similar to the waiver signed by those who wish to summit Everest. ASAP may be retained, or a portion of it, to estimate risk involved and recommend changes to mitigate that risk.
NASA would then turn its full attention to surface activities on the moon, habitat, dust mitigation, those kinds of things, and leave the transportation to the private companies.
I could not have said it better. In fact, I’ve tried in the past. Right on, right on.
The only way to have enough money to get this done is to minimize expenses on all other Human Space Flight activities possible. However, having said that, it does not really make sense to torpedo the ISS, which has already been bought and paid for, all it takes now is maintenance, so that should remain as a National Laboratory for the foreseeable future.
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I think that will require some people to be changed in certain positions.
You know, the LEM during Apollo massed just under 16 tons. The FH is capable of sending 16 tons to the Moon. It seems with modern materials, electronics, etc., it would possible to build a new two stage expendable lander that weighs under 16 tons. Then just send the crew in a modified Dragon2 on another FH to dock with it. All that is needed is to build the new Lander, and modify Dragon2. That could probably be done easily within the time frame for a modest amount. If its not safe enough for NASA astronauts I am sure SpaceX could find volunteers.
By 2024 Starship may be ready, a one-vehicle solution. In the 2017 update they said refuelling in a high elliptical orbit gets them to the lunar surface and back.
I have urged for months to move the SLS/Orion out of the critical path to the moon & put out a request for proposal to the commercials. SLS/Orion can continue development at a steady, low-budget pace but without urgency. Just tweak it along until it has a mission such as new telescopes, Europa, etc. but not human spaceflight. I doubt it will ever be safe enough for that. If at such time, it’s seen SLS won’t have a role, MSFC should then go for advanced propulsion and get into the future, not the past.
Thanks for wishing SLS on the Science Mission Directorate. As if they had the money for it. And, despite some planetary scientists talking about all the things they could use a SLS for (if it were provided at the incremental cost or some other fantasy), I think Europa Clipper will turn out to be a bad experience. I suspect it will delay the mission more than flying on a Falcon Heavy and needing a longer cruise would. Another possibility is flying on a Falcon, but with the decision to do so delayed by either wishful thinking or arm twisting.
I saw a presentation at ISDC on some robotic muissions for SLS, including a Titan submarine, Uranus and Neptune orbiters. I was thinking how much easier they could be done with a pair, or even trio, of FH launches, with docking of the two elements in Earth Orbit.
… The Orion program is not on schedule to meet the June 2020 launch date for the first mission due to delays with the European Service Module and ongoing component issues with the avionics systems for the crew module, including issues discovered during testing
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The first service module was delivered in January 2019. Does this mean there are problems with integrating the Service Module?
Component issues with the avionics could stop the project cold. The avionics use a PowerPC architecture which are not easily obtainable parts.
I think they are RAD750’s, which are radiation hard chips based on the PowerPC. That’s less of problem, since the production line isn’t dependent on the commercial (non-aerospace) market. BAE is still making them, and has no plans to stop. They’re just terrifyingly expensive. But I also don’t think they would be the problem.
They have shipped, and the EM-1 (or Artemis 1) service module is in Florida. That mean it passed all the pre-shipping tests and reviews. (Well, probably… Something’s very broken when a program is shipping hardware before it passed those tests and reviews. But we are talking about Orion.) That makes me think the problem is plugging the crew and service modules together and making them talk to each other. That could be software, it could be synchronization, or the physical wiring, or a number of things. But I think anything wrong with the chips themselves would have turned up much sooner.
Look at the bright side. When it comes to electronics, everyone uses SI metric; volts and amps are the same in Europe and the United States.
Thanks. And they been working on Orion for how many years? I mean this is all quite maddening. It’s like they are working on this on a part time basis.
The only problem with OMB’s observations is that 2021 is still a couple years away and there is plenty of time for the schedule to slip some more so is the real date in 2022? And yet NASA intends to have people back on the moon in 2024?? Lets be real. Personally I have absolutely zero confidence in NASA’s ability to do anything at all.
Perhaps that is why the VP keeps talking about American astronauts on the Moon not NASA ones. That expands the goal to include commercial astronauts.
No, it’s becaue he doesnt know the difference.