The Mobile Launcher-2 (ML-2) at the Kennedy Space Center March 30. Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust
WASHINGTON — Four NASA exploration projects that the agency stopped earlier this year as part of changes to its Artemis lunar exploration campaign had suffered overruns that saw their costs more than double, with more than $1 billion in additional increases expected.
In a June 24 memo, NASA’s Office of Inspector General, or OIG, offered its initial assessment of the projects as part of an ongoing audit, linked to NASA’s decision earlier this year to end development of the Space Launch System’s Block 1B variant and the lunar Gateway.
Three of the projects are linked to the SLS Block 1B: the Exploration Upper Stage, or EUS; Universal Stage Adapter, or USA; and Mobile Launcher 2. The fourth is the Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO, module for the Gateway.
“Over the course of their life cycles, the combined contract values for these efforts ballooned from nearly $2.8 billion to $5.9 billion, and NASA extended their contracted delivery dates by up to 7 years,” the memo concluded. “However, our projections indicate that if NASA allowed work to continue to completion, the systems would have cost more and taken longer than what was on contract.”
