GAO Report: NASA: Assessments of Major Projects

“Since 2023, NASA’s cumulative cost and schedule performance has improved. Cost overruns decreased from $7.6 billion in 2023 to $4.4 billion in 2024. Schedule overruns decreased from a total of 20.9 years in 2023 to 14.5 years in 2024. These decreases are primarily because two projects, the Space Launch System and Exploration Ground Systems, demonstrated their initial capability and left the portfolio. Previously, these projects accounted for $3.6 billion in cost overruns and each experienced delays of 4 years. … Regardless of their category, most of the projects in development did not experience annual cost growth or schedule delays since 2023. Specifically, 11 out of the 16 major projects in development did not experience cost growth in 2024, and 13 out of the 16 reported no schedule delays this year. … Five of the 16 projects experienced cost growth since our last report, which increased the development portfolio’s estimated overruns by $476.6 million. … In March 2024, NASA announced that it was canceling OSAM-1, a category 1 project with a history of poor cost and schedule performance. … NASA delayed setting cost and schedule baselines for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, a category 1 project with a potential life-cycle cost of $8 billion to $11 billion.” Full report