In a written response to the report, the chief of NASA\u2019s Human Spaceflight Directorate, Lori Glaze, said the data in the memorandum support NASA\u2019s decision to cancel these programs earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cNASA notes that the challenges summarized in the memorandum\u2014cost growth, schedule slips, contractor performance issues, and evolving mission requirements\u2014reinforce the rationale behind the decisions publicly announced during Ignition Day to streamline the Artemis architecture, modernize acquisition practices, and align programs with the nation\u2019s objectives for sustained lunar presence,\u201d Glaze wrote.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an expensive stage adapter you\u2019ve got there<\/p>\n
The least expensive of the four contracts, for the Universal Stage Adapter, is perhaps the most illustrative. NASA contracted with Dynetics in June 2017 to design, test, and build this piece of spaceflight hardware. Made largely of composites, the adapter weighed 9,650 pounds (4.3 metric tons) and stood 33 feet (10 meters) tall.<\/p>\n
The original contract awarded to Dynetics totaled $131 million, to which NASA later added $9 million for a payload separation system. At the time the program was canceled earlier this year, the contract value had grown to $353 million, with a delivery date delayed to September 2028. The inspector general\u2019s report projected that the project would likely cost $497 million and not be ready until May 2030.<\/p>\n
To be clear: NASA was likely going to pay half a billion dollars for a relatively straightforward stage adaptor. This doesn\u2019t have propulsion or anything like that on board. Also, for some unfathomable reason, it was likely to take 13 years to build.<\/p>\n
Another interesting note from the report is that the inspector general did not believe the Lunar Gateway, based on delays with the Habitation and Logistics Outpost, would have been operational until at least 2032. Ars reported last week that NASA formally asked<\/a> Northrop Grumman to stop work on this module.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a written response to the report, the chief of NASA\u2019s Human Spaceflight Directorate, Lori Glaze, said the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-494086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}