Fwd: Rocket's progress stumbles - Budget's structure makes cost overruns, delays likely----Seems like I heard that re nasaproblems.com

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: August 25, 2013 6:06:47 PM GMT-06:00
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Rocket's progress stumbles - Budget's structure makes cost overruns, delays likely

 

 

      Aug. 24, 2013 10:09 PM

Faith in rocket's progress stumbles

NASA: Budget's structure makes cost overruns, delays likely

NASA launch system faces risk of delays: Heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft both face serious financial and technical challenges. Posted Aug. 24, 2013

Written by
James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY

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Artist's concept of NASA's Space Launch System initial crew vehicle launching from Kennedy Space Center. / NASA

The rocket and spacecraft NASA is developing to carry crews into deep space already face questions about whether they'll be ready, without additional funding, to blast off on a first test flight in late 2017.

The programs are proceeding with daunting budget challenges and an above-normal risk of delays or cost increases, according to recent agency reports and statements.

Any significant slip in the first, uncrewed flight would delay hiring at Kennedy Space Center that is expected to ramp up ahead of the mission. It also could push back a first crewed flight targeted for 2021, driving up the cost on a program tentatively planning to spend more than $22 billion during the next eight years.

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden recently warned an advisory panel that the 321-foot high Space Launch System rocket was not expected to meet the agency's usual standard for pushing a program forward.

NASA strives for at least 70 percent confidence that programs over $250 million will come in on time and budget, but Bolden said he suspected the heavy-lift rocket might fall short "for a variety of reasons, mainly having to do with reserves."

"So then, you have to decide, OK, how much risk do you want to accept if you're going to go below this level?" he told the NASA Advisory Council on July 31.

Two weeks later, NASA's inspector general cataloged numerous challenges facing development of the Orion crew vehicle, principally that its flat annual budget increased the chance problems may be found late that require more time or money to fix.

The SLS rocket has a similarly "flat-lined" budget.

For now, managers say the three components of the exploration system — the rocket, Orion and ground systems at Kennedy — are making good progress.

"This set of programs has met every single one of its major milestones that were planned out two years ago," said Dan Dumbacher, deputy associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development at NASA headquarters.

NASA expects to formally commit to a development plan this year that will update the rocket's cost and schedule projections and set a so-called Joint Confidence Level, or JCL, quantifying the risks ahead.

Agency policy permits a program falling below the 70 percent confidence threshold to proceed as long as the rationale is justified and documented appropriately.

But government watchdogs say such an outcome would "raise a red flag," particularly if inadequate reserves were a primary reason for it, as Bolden suggested.

"Reserves are one way to address uncertainty," said Cristina Chaplain, director of acquisition and sourcing management at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. "In the past, large programs on the scale of SLS that have not had sufficient reserves have faced funding challenges that invariably drove up costs and/or stretched schedules."

Another of NASA's major programs, the James Webb Space Telescope, missed the 70 percent mark, but offset that shortcoming with reserves from NASA headquarters. It's not clear such a cushion will be available for SLS.

The Hubble successor's estimated cost has grown by almost nine times, to $8.8 billion, and is targeting a launch in 2018, more than a decade later than initially planned.

GAO commends NASA for performing the Joint Confidence Level analysis, a relatively new process that is expected to improve upon the agency's track record of unrealistic projections, especially for human spaceflight programs.

NASA is "still working the numbers" for SLS, Dumbacher said.

The space agency said the confidence level will be one of several measures of the program's overall health, and it is not well-suited to programs with flat funding profiles. GAO disagrees.

Dumbacher acknowledged the flat budget represents the rocket development's biggest overall risk, and said the availability of reserves when you need them is always a concern.

"We will always run into problems, particularly when you're building the largest launch vehicle that's ever been built, and you've got integration issues, you've got to figure out how to put all those pieces together," he said.

The program ideally would set aside as much as 30 percent of its funding for reserves to address problems as they come up, Dumbacher said, "but that's not today's reality."

Complex space hardware typically is developed with a bell-shaped funding curve. Budgets shoot up as multiple systems are worked simultaneously and technical issues are addressed, then taper off ahead of operations.

These programs have no curve. NASA's projected funding holds steady every year, with no adjustments for inflation.

As a result, work on important systems will be deferred until late in the process. A focus on Orion's life-support systems, for example, will wait until after the unmanned 2017 test launch.

According to NASA's inspector general, experience shows "delaying critical development tasks increases the risk of future cost and schedule problems."

"We believe it vital that Congress and the public recognize that incremental spacecraft development is not an optimal way to sustain a human space program," the report concluded.

That line echoes findings from a White House review panel that in 2009 determined NASA's previous exploration program was on "an unsustainable trajectory," leading to its cancellation.

"It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that are often admirable, but which do not match available resources," the Augustine Committee wrote of NASA's Constellation program, which was developing Ares rockets and Orion to return astronauts to the moon.

Counting work begun during Constellation, NASA has already spent more than $15.5 billion on SLS and Orion.

The White House and Congress are pressing forward with an incremental development approach as a necessity, given pressure to cut federal spending and deficits.

The $2.8 billion NASA plans annually for SLS, Orion and the ground systems is more than three times the total being sought for commercial vehicles being designed to fly astronauts from the Space Coast to the International Space Station, also by 2017.

Bolden's warning of a low confidence level for SLS came as NASA completed the rocket's preliminary design review.

Dumbacher said the review for such a large, complex system was cleaner than others.

"The technical issues are fewer, the magnitude of those technical issues are smaller, than what I think we were dealing with back in the

Constellation and Ares days," he said.

The ground systems and Orion programs should establish their own confidence levels by next spring and fall, respectively.

NASA is eager to show off Orion's progress with a test flight just over a year from now. Dumbacher said an unpiloted Orion prototype is on track to launch from Cape Canaveral atop a Delta IV Heavy rocket.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.

 

 

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