NASA’s Management Challenges

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The crew of NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission. (NASA)

With NASA now facing a new administration in Washington, it is worth looking at where the agency is at the moment and what may need some attention. The 2024 Report on NASA’s Top Management and Performance Challenges, released by the NASA Office of the Inspector General (OIG), is a good place to start.

Here are a few of the challenges facing NASA at the moment:

  • Improving the Management of Major Programs and Projects
    • Changing requirements, significant technical issues, increased costs, and schedule delays continue to impact the sustainability of major programs and projects.
    • Cost increases and schedule delays often create cascading effects across NASA’s portfolio of projects.
    • Without complete, credible, timely, and transparent cost and schedule commitments for the Agency’s major projects, it is difficult for NASA, Congress, and stakeholders to make informed decisions about the prioritization of efforts and the Agency’s long-term funding needs.

  • Partnering with Commercial Industry
    • The transition to commercial space systems will require significant long-term financial investments by NASA and private companies as well as growing demand for non-NASA customers to ensure long-term economic viability.
    • Commercial partners are competitors in an emerging industry, developing modern space transportation capabilities and associated operations that have never been available.
    • The challenge to commercial partnerships comes in balancing the speed of development, flexibility, and adherence to timelines against the safety and reliability of new technology.

  • Enabling Mission Critical Capabilities and Support Services
    • NASA faces challenges with its mission critical capabilities including attracting and retaining a highly skilled and diverse workforce and managing outdated infrastructure and facilities needed for science, aeronautics, and exploration missions.
    • NASA’s decentralized information technology management structure and lack of strategic leadership negatively affect the Agency’s ability to protect and fully utilize computer systems and data vital to its mission.
    • NASA’s contract management practices have consistently led to increased costs and overly generous award fees.

This is quite a list, and the report goes into great detail on all of them. Of course, this is not SSA or the IRS with a pretty standard day-to-day mission, and where future expectations of the agency are easily foreseeable. As the auditors note, NASA is dealing with high-risk, complex issues requiring highly skilled workers who have to maintain many current programs around the solar system while also assisting a newly emerging private space industry here in the United States (which is pinching its staff). Moreover, looking back at the beginning of the universe as well as searching for sources of life in the universe today are big missions. We are asking a lot of NASA. This is rocket science and much, much more.

Kudos to NASA for what it has done over the years while maintaining a highly-motivated workforce.

In addition, since I expect Elon Musk will try to claim that he came up with these issues on his own, I thought it was worth highlighting this report now. NASA knows it has a lot to do and it is working to solve these matters each and every day.

Audit Report: Keeping the ISS Afloat is Getting Harder Every Day

Posted on by onespaceman2000

NASA’s Office of Inspect General (OIG) issued an audit report this week, NASA’s Management of Risks to Sustaining ISS Operations through 2030 (IG-24-020), that highlighted the ongoing issues NASA faces to keep the International Space Station (ISS) in orbit as well as plan its decommissioning.

The OIG auditors specifically noted concerns regarding (1) repairing and maintaining the integrity of the station, (2) too little redundancy in the commercial partners carrying crews and supplies to the station, (3) continued risk of micro meteoroids and debris damaging the station, (4) lack of ready-to-use capsules to escape the station in an emergency, and (5) lack of Russian commitment to de-orbiting the station at the end of its life.

That’s a long list of concerns, none of which are surprising given the complexity of the space station and the ongoing environmental issue, be it commercial partners, exterior space, or Russian commitment. It is amazing that the station has had so few major issues to date.

These issues need to be resolved for the current station and be considered as part of any new stations (government-run or commercial), whether they are orbiting the Earth, the Moon, or even Mars.

Audit Report: Concerns about the Gateway Space Station

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: NASA

In a recent audit report, Artemis Programs: NASA Should Document and Communicate Plans to Address Gateway’s Mass Risk, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) expressed some concerns about NASA’s Gateway space station, which will orbit the moon as part of Artemis IV . Specifically, the concerns relate to the first components of the space station to be launched in December 2027 —the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO).

In the report, GAO states:

The Gateway program’s projects—including PPE and HALO—made varying degrees of progress over the last year. However, the PPE and HALO projects face several significant challenges. For example, their combined mass is greater than their mass target. Mass is one of many factors that the program considers in its overall design. If they cannot meet their mass target, it may affect their ability to reach the correct lunar orbit.

The report goes on to state:

For example, program officials estimate that the mass of the lunar lander Starship is approximately 18 times greater than the value NASA used to develop the PPE’s controllability parameters.

NASA agrees with the single GAO recommendation in this report, which recommends that a mass management be ready for an upcoming review in September 2024.

There is a lot to read in the 52 page report, but the real question is whether NASA will be ready for the 2027 Gateway launch. This is a ongoing concern given that we are already seeing delays in other parts of the Artemis program.

Audit Report: Is NASA Ready for Artemis II?

Posted on by onespaceman2000

The NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued an audit report earlier this week, NASA’s Readiness for the Artemis II Crewed Mission to Lunar Orbit, that expressed concerns about problems with the Artemis I test flight mission in late 2022. For example, the report noted:

…the Artemis I test flight revealed critical issues that need to be addressed before placing crew on the Artemis II mission. In particular, the test flight revealed anomalies with the Orion heat shield, separation bolts, and power distribution that pose significant risks to the safety of the crew…Specifically, NASA identified more than 100 locations where ablative thermal protective material from Orion’s heat shield wore away differently than expected during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere…Beyond the Orion anomalies, the Artemis I launch-induced environment caused greater than expected damage to ML-1 elevators, electrical equipment, enclosure panel doors, and pneumatic tubing, requiring extensive repairs that will cost more than $26 million, roughly 5 times more than the $5 million the EGS Program had originally set aside for postArtemis I launch repairs.

While NASA is already working on repairs and improvements in each of these areas, it still puts a bit of a damper on NASA’s earlier video about all of the successes of Artemis I. NASA has already lost too many astronauts to heat shield issues in the past, so this is a serious matter that needs to be resolved before putting humans in the Orion capsule.

The OIG auditors made six recommendations to NASA management. NASA concurred with these recommendations, but noted that the audit was conducted at a difficult time, stating:

Being audited in the middle of a development process presents several challenges including disruptions to ongoing workflow and priorities due to the reallocation of resources and the coordination challenges associated with audit activities.

Of course, auditors are never really welcome at any point in the process. If they come too late, they are accused of shooting the dead.

NASA conducted the test flight to learn about such issues, so in that sense it was a success. Hopefully, the space agency can make the necessary improvements while keeping the Artemis II mission on track given that it has already been delayed.

Space Quote: The End of NASA’s OSAM-1 Project

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the OSAM-1 project in action. (NASA)

“Following an in-depth, independent project review, NASA has decided to discontinue the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 (OSAM-1) project due to continued technical, cost, and schedule challenges, and a broader community evolution away from refueling unprepared spacecraft, which has led to a lack of a committed partner. Following Congressional notification processes, project management plans to complete an orderly shutdown, including the disposition of sensitive hardware, pursuing potential partnerships or alternative hardware uses, and licensing of applicable technological developments. NASA leadership also is reviewing how to mitigate the impact of the cancellation on the workforce at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.”

-Statement by NASA in recent communications. The project has been in development since 2015. About 450 NASA employees and contractors working on the OSAM-1 project. In an earlier report by the Government Accountability Office, the auditors noted, “OSAM-1 cost growth and schedule delays are exacerbated by poor contractor performance and continued technical challenges.”