Only NASA Could Make A Reusable Engine Expendable – And Cost More
Keith’s note: According to a new NASA OIG Report “NASA’s Management of the Space Launch System Booster and Engine Contracts“: “… the complexity of developing, updating, and integrating new systems along with heritage components proved to be much greater than anticipated, resulting in the completion of only 5 of 16 engines under the Adaptation contract and added scope and cost increases to the Boosters contract. … Additionally, Marshall Space Flight Center procurement officials who oversee all four contracts are challenged by inadequate staff, their lack of experience, and limited opportunities to review contract documentation. … Marshall procurement officials also encountered significant issues with the award of BPOC, the follow-on booster contract, which started as an undefinitized letter contract in which terms, specifications, and price were not agreed upon before performance began. We found NASA took 499 days to definitize the letter contract, which is far outside the 180-day federal guidance. … As a result, we question $19.8 million in award fees it received for the 11 unfinished engines which were subsequently moved to the RS-25 Restart and Production contract and may now be eligible to receive additional award fees. … Faced with continuing cost and schedule increases, NASA is undertaking efforts to make the SLS more affordable. Under the RS-25 Restart and Production contract, NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne are projecting manufacturing cost savings of 30 percent per engine starting with production of the seventh of 24 new engines. However, those savings do not capture overhead and other costs, which we currently estimate at $2.3 billion. Moreover, NASA currently cannot track per-engine costs to assess whether they are meeting these projected saving targets.”
8 responses to “Only NASA Could Make A Reusable Engine Expendable – And Cost More”
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Wondering why?
Any organizational conglomeration which actually (with straight faces) uses the abominable and mashed-up fabricated term ‘definitize’ is in serious danger of strangling in its own cluelessness re: reality.
I am happy these self-assessments repeatedly find that NASA is, in short, incompetent. Competent leadership; competent management long ago left. For far too many years, in the area of human spaceflight, NASA has been its own worst enemy, costing the US taxpayer billions of dollars while holding back progress. The best thing NASA can do now is to stay out of the way of entrepreneurs like Musk.
But NASA is a sizeable organization with a lot of power. It really needs some guidance of its appropriate future role, or maybe parts just need to be abolished.
Please stop painting everyone with a broad brush .
Agreed. While certain programs are less than ideal, others are extremely successful. The cargo and crew contracts for example. They were very forward thinking when they came out. Plus while not an ideal program, Artemis/SLS 1 was spectacularly successful. More so than the recent Starship launch which seemed to miss out some of the basic rules of a big rocket launch.
Apparently you did not read either this blog or the IG report? They both told exactly what you need to know about SLS and NASA rocket engines being totally screwed up. Artemis and SLS “spectacular success”? After 150 billion $$ and 15 years they successfully flew the Shuttle SSMEs and SRBs one more time.
Commercial crew and cargo; prime examples of how US entrepreneurs did the job when NASA could not. It was Shuttle’s shut down (after needlessly killing a crew) and the failure of the Orion CERV, which was supposed to start carrying astronauts to ISS in 2011, that necessitated commercial crew and cargo. Orion was intended as the replacement. NASAs failure required an alternative solution.
NASA may be completely incompetent, but at least they have a great DEI score.
Another ignorant post with respect to DEI.
Maybe the problems are with the good ol’ boys who come from the same old schools with the same old ideas and principles.