2024 Report on NASA’s Top Management and Performance Challenges Full report. Excerpts:

• NASA has requested additional funding for Artemis systems through FY 2029, with the Artemis V mission delayed until 2030. At the same time, the lack of a comprehensive cost estimate for the Artemis campaign means that Congress and other stakeholders lack the level of transparency and insight needed about the long-term cost, feasibility, and sustainability of the effort.
• NASA expects to continue operations and maintenance of the Station through 2030. However, as the Agency delays the retirement of the ISS farther into the future, a variety of long-standing challenges will continue to intensify. These include maintaining and upgrading the Station, managing cargo and crew transportation constraints, and solidifying a transition and controlled deorbit plan.
• We also continue to identify funding instability as an impediment to NASA’s project management success. Unstable or uncertain funding, whether in terms of the total amount of funds dedicated to a project or the timing of when those funds are disbursed to the project, can result in inefficient management practices that contribute to poor cost, schedule, and performance outcomes. Protecting Ocean Worlds: Europa Clipper Planetary Protection Inputs To A Probabilistic Risk-based Approach
• Though the volume of interest in private astronaut missions has exceeded NASA’s expectations, significant demand for commercial activity in other sectors—such as in-space manufacturing and marketing products for sale on Earth—has yet to materialize. It is too early to determine the extent to which private astronaut missions will help facilitate a commercial market in LEO.
• At the end of 2023, approximately 64 percent of NASA employees worked in science and engineering occupations, yet the Agency remains at risk from a shortage of such staff due to increased competition for talent from the growing commercial space industry. NASA’s STEM engagement efforts have faced significant challenges over the past two decades including shifting administration priorities and declining budgets.
• much of NASA’s current infrastructure dates to the Apollo-era of space exploration and is in marginal to poor condition. As of July 2024, more than 83 percent of NASA’s facilities are beyond their original design life.
• Another area that we identified is NASA’s management of its cost-plus contracts for development efforts such as the SLS, Orion, and ML-2. These programs have experienced years of delays and billions of dollars in cost increases, due in part to payment of overly generous award fees that we have found to be inconsistent with contractor performance. Award- fee contracts are designed to incentivize contractors and reward strong performance, and these fees are in addition to the amounts paid to reimburse them for actual costs incurred.

Keith’s Note: When Senator Administrator Bill Nelson walked in the door at NASA they thought Mobile Launcher 2 would cost $500 million. NASA OIG now says that it will have cost $2.7 billion by the time Bechtel delivers it. Add in delays and cost overruns in the overall Artemis project and the ever slowing launch cadence between missions and you have to wonder why NASA is building something that it simply does not need and probably never did. And when OIG suggests that NASA convert this to a fixed cost contract to nail down the final costs NASA says “no”. Bill Nelson gets mad about China beating the U.S. (back) to the Moon when NASA is doing a great job of allowing that to happen. According to OIG: “NASA projects the ML-2 will cost over three times more than planned. In 2019, NASA estimated the entire ML-2 project from design through construction would cost under $500 million with construction completed and the ML-2 delivered to NASA by March 2023. In December 2023, NASA estimated the ML-2 project would cost $1.5 billion, including $1.3 billion for the Bechtel contract and $168 million for other project costs, with delivery of the launcher to NASA in November 2026. In June 2024, NASA established the Agency Baseline Commitment (ABC)—the cost and schedule baseline committed to Congress against which a project is measured—for a ML-2 project cost of $1.8 billion and a delivery date of September 2027. Even with the establishment of the ABC, NASA intends to keep Bechtel accountable to the cost and schedule agreed to in December 2023. Despite the Agency’s increased cost projections, our analysis indicates costs could be even higher due in part to the significant amount of construction work that remains. Specifically, our projections indicate the total cost could reach $2.7 billion by the time Bechtel delivers the ML-2 to NASA. With the time NASA requires after delivery to prepare the launcher, we project the ML-2 will not be ready to support a launch until spring 2029, surpassing the planned September2028 Artemis IV launch date. NASA officials disagree with our analysis and expect cost growth to lessen over time now that Bechtel has started construction of the launcher. The Agency believes this is an area of expertise for the contractor. While progress has been made with the beginning of construction of the ML-2, it is still too early to determine the impact on the contract’s continued cost growth and whether Bechtel can achieve and sustain an improved level of performance throughout the construction phase.” Full report: NASA’s Management of the Mobile Launcher 2 Project

“Our review found that NASA deviated from its original, hands-off strategy for the initiative and from its plan for incremental progress towards larger missions. Rather, the Agency’s aggressive lander development schedules led to increasingly risk-averse practices and policies. For example, NASA insight and oversight increased, and more detailed vendor proposals were required. This resulted in higher costs and delayed delivery schedules while threatening the initiative’s ability to achieve its broad objectives. Specifically, inserting a larger lander to accommodate the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) into CLPS’s early schedule interfered with a progressive development approach. This introduced the added risk of beginning the first large lander delivery before knowledge could be gained from the success (or failure) of smaller deliveries. NASA’s planned hands-off approach was also somewhat negated when the Agency added augmented insight and placed added requirements on the vendors’ development process. We found that NASA-directed changes, including augmented insight and landing site changes, led to $171.4 million in project cost increases. … Our analysis showed these challenges will continue to hinder NASA’s ability to meet the initiative’s objectives. While the initiative has a contract capped at $2.6 billion through 2028, increased costs on previous task orders jeopardize the plan to issue two task orders per year. … In the 5 years since CLPS began, NASA has not reassessed market conditions to better understand the Agency’s role and changing market conditions. Finally, we found CLPS lacks a detailed management plan that could outline a disciplined approach, promote accountability for how the Agency measures success, and help the initiative weigh competing priorities.” Full report

Keith’s Note: If you have read NASAWatch for the past 28+ years then you’ve been reading my rants about lack of quality education and outreach at NASA – regardless of the name that NASA affixes to the office that is supposed to be doing this. NASA has an unparalleled and unvarnished brand identity with decades of embedded global reach that continues to grow unabated. Yet the agency squanders this opportunity by underfunding its educational activities, refusing to coordinate activities internally, and installing managers who do not have formal education administration backgrounds. According to the NASA OIG Audit of NASA’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Engagement: “OSTEM’s performance goals are unclear and lack robust metrics, making it difficult to correlate goals to outcomes or measure success” … “OSTEM does not collect comprehensive cost or obligation data that would benefit decision-makers.” … “Furthermore, we identified issues with OSTEM’s monitoring of grants and cooperative agreements, including missing documentation in the grant and cooperative agreement files, insufficient post-award monitoring, and incomplete grant closeouts. Similarly, OSTEM does not track grant subrecipients, relying on prime recipients to ensure subrecipients are aware of award terms and conditions.” … “In our view, NASA may be missing opportunities to invest limited resources in less competitive jurisdictions, and we estimate that $12.6 million could be put to better use within EPSCoR over the next 5 years.” … “OSTEM is missing opportunities to target NASA’s future workforce more directly.”

Keith’s note: The annual NASA OIG look at issues confronting NASA is out and nothing has changed. NASA still accomplishes astonishing things yet that is challenged by the fact that NASA still cannot figure out what things cost or deliver them on time. “… Despite these important achievements, substantial cost growth and lengthy schedule delays continue to impact not only human space flight programs, like the Space Launch System and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, but also other major science and exploratory programs, projects, and missions. In addition, the International Space Station’s planned retirement at the end of the decade poses a challenge for the Agency as it seeks to maintain an active human presence in low Earth orbit. The Agency also faces long-standing challenges managing its information technology; overseeing contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements; ensuring it attracts and retains a highly technical and diverse workforce; and managing outdated infrastructure and facilities.” Full report: OIG 2023 Report on NASA’s Top Management and Performance Challenges

Keith’s note: I am not sure that this is the sort of news you want to hear when Artemis (SLS) costs continue to mount, missions are delayed, and exploration cadence is disrupted – all while overall NASA budgets are being squeezed. How do you do a “sustainable” program of lunar exploration when your supply chain is not working – before you even start putting people on the lunar surface? According to a new NASA OIG report NASA’s Management of the Artemis Supply Chain: “Most importantly, the Agency lacks visibility into its critical suppliers with many Artemis programs and projects not tracking their prime contractors’ supply chain impacts. Even when issues with subcontractors and suppliers are identified, performance challenges are not shared across Artemis teams to enable effective procurement decisions. Moreover, we found that NASA’s Logistics Management Division (LMD) – which could be a useful resource to help plan for supply chain issues – is not utilized by Artemis programs and projects. … Two internal collaborative efforts at NASA – the Supply Chain Resiliency Forum and the Holistic Agency Study – were designed to improve NASA’s understanding of its supply chain issues. The Forum convenes representatives from across the Agency to coordinate supply chain-related activities, but the group has not yet finalized an official charter. The Holistic Agency Study, conducted by the Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy and the Office of the Chief Engineer, took place from late 2021 to 2023. The group used a broad survey of NASA stakeholders to examine supply chain issues and related management issues across the Agency. Initial results of the study show that supply chain issues at NASA are usually a surprise to the Agency, with mitigation therefore reactive rather than proactive. However, none of these collaborative efforts to date have significantly improved NASA’s visibility into its Artemis supply chain.”

Keith’s note: According to the new NASA OIG Report “NASA’s Transition of the Space Launch System to a Commercial Services Contract“ … “NASA’s ability to reduce SLS costs and negotiate a fixed-price contract with DST will be impeded by a lack of competition for heavy-lift launch services, a characteristic that historically has helped drive down costs. Further, NASA has permitted current SLS contractors to incorporate limited rights data into the design of the core stage and Exploration Upper Stage, effectively blocking other contractors from competing to build the SLS system. That said, inclusion of several Federal Acquisition Regulation provisions in EPOC such as incentive fees may assist NASA in contract negotiations, mitigate the impact to schedule and cost overruns, and ensure remaining data rights are retained to the fullest extent possible by the government. Finally, while DST intends to reduce costs by increasing economies of scale by building more SLSs, its efforts to find customers outside of NASA have been unsuccessful to date. Although the SLS is the only launch vehicle currently available that meets Artemis mission needs, in the next 3 to 5 years other human-rated commercial alternatives that are lighter, cheaper, and reusable may become available. Therefore, NASA may want to consider whether other commercial options should be a part of its mid- to long-term plans to support its ambitious space exploration goals.”

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.”

Keith’s note: small wonder that NASA fails so miserably in reaching vast portions of America when it still can’t change its own internal culture. Latest OIG report: “Despite support from Agency leaders and multiple initiatives to increase diversity, we found NASA has made little progress in increasing the representation of women and minorities in its civilian workforce or leadership ranks. Specifically, over the past decade NASA’s overall workforce demographics have stayed roughly the same, with small increases (1 or 2 percent) for some groups. Demographics have not varied significantly over the same time period at individual NASA Centers, with only two Centers increasing African American representation and other Centers making small gains in Hispanic, Asian American, and women’s representation. We also found NASA has made few gains in the percentages of women and racial and ethnic minorities in its senior levels (General Schedule 14 and 15 positions and Senior Executive Service) over the decade. At the same time, the proportion of veterans NASA hires has declined over the past 10 years, most significantly from 28 percent in 2015 to 13 percent in 2021. NASA’s lack of progress towards increasing diversity in its workforce is due to the Agency’s siloed approach to advancing DEIA. Specifically, ODEO and OCHCO have focused their efforts on meeting federal workforce reporting requirements while also working to integrate DEIA concepts into Agency culture. Moreover, NASA did not hold its leaders fully accountable for advancing DEIA efforts in their annual performance appraisals until 2021. In addition, the Agency has experienced gaps in professional development and training opportunities including programs designed to prepare employees for senior roles.” (Full report) — Update: I just deleted two bigoted anti-diversity comments. From now on you are instantly banned if you try this. I expected better from readers than this.

Keith’s note: According to the OIG: “Except for the Gateway Program, the Artemis campaign does not have comprehensive forums—boards, panels, and working groups— for its international partners to routinely discuss topics such as flight and mission planning, safety, and research integration. In contrast, the ISS Program–seen as a model of long-term international space cooperation–employs these forums as well as on-site representation from partner agencies. … current Artemis agreements are pursued bilaterally with interested parties without an overall cooperative framework that addresses the legal structure, program development, or partner roles and responsibilities.” Executive Summary and Full report