NASA plans to spend billions of dollars to build more rockets for upcoming moon missions, but a congressional watchdog says additional transparency is needed to monitor costs.
NASA does not plan to measure production costs to monitor the affordability of its most powerful rocket, the Space Launch System, or SLS, according to a report released Thursday by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The SLS, the world’s most powerful rocket, will allow NASA to return astronauts to the moon. The space agency has requested $11.2 billion in the fiscal year 2024 president’s budget request to fund the program through fiscal year 2028. That’s on top of the $11.8 billion spent since 2011 developing the initial SLS, according to the report.
In November 2022, NASA successfully demonstrated SLS Block 1 during its Artemis I flight test.
“While Artemis I was ultimately a successful launch, the SLS program has faced a variety of challenges, which led to significant cost growth and years of delays to that launch,” according to the report.
The goal of NASA’s Artemis missions is to return U.S. astronauts to the moon, including a sustained presence on the moon and, ultimately, human exploration of Mars.
NASA intends to fly a series of increasingly difficult missions, including Artemis II – a crewed test flight planned for 2024 – and Artemis III – a crewed lunar landing planned for 2025, according to the report.
“Senior agency officials have told us that at current cost levels the SLS program is unsustainable and exceeds what NASA officials believe will be available for its Artemis missions,” according to the report.
The Government Accountability Office has designated NASA’s management of acquisitions as a high-risk area for more than 30 years. In a report in April, the Government Accountability Office found that “to make human spaceflight programs more affordable, NASA needed to provide more information about long-term program costs and take actions to reduce those costs.”
“To improve the long-term affordability of the SLS program, NASA has developed a long-term affordability and sustainability initiative. Under this initiative, officials told us that they are exploring different operating models moving forward, such as a joint venture or a consolidated contract that provides a launch services operating model. Under a launch services model, the government would award a contract to procure from a contractor future launches and payload capabilities,” according to the report. “In essence, NASA would purchase future SLS launches and payload capabilities from a contractor who would own, operate, and integrate the SLS vehicle. The officials told us the agency is still reviewing its future strategy in advance of releasing a request for proposals to support an eventual contract award.”
