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mission critical capabilities including attracting and retaining a highly skilled and diverse workforce and managing outdated infrastructure and facilities needed for science, aeronautics, and exploration missions.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.

Russia Assists Iranian Space Program

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Russia’s launch of the Kowsar and Hodhod satellites from Vostochny launch-pad in far eastern Russia. (Roscosmos)

While Americans are contemplating this week’s election, the Russians were up to more mischief this week. I am not talking about North Korean soldiers being used to attack Ukraine. I am referring to the Russians launching two Iranian satellites via a Soyuz rocket on Tuesday (yes, the same date as the US election).

One of the satellites is the Kowsar, a high-resolution imaging satellite, and the second the Hodhod, which is a small communications satellite. Both are said to be private sector cubic satellites, representing the first private sector Iranian satellites to be launched to date. Tehran Times states that both satellites are being used for agricultural purposes.

Hassan Salarieh, the head of the Iranian Space Agency stated:

Achieving significant goals in this field is unattainable without robust participation from private enterprises. We believe that the private sector should enter this field in a competitive environment, considering market criteria.

The partnership between Russia and Iran regarding potentially dual-use space technology, at a time when both nations are involved in military actions against their neighbors, is not good news for peace.

Pic of the Week: CRS-31 Capsule Approaches the ISS

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Dragon capsule approaching the ISS earlier this week with Argentina in the background. (NASA)

This week’s image from NASA shows the uncrewed Dragon capsule approaching the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, November 5th. Once connected with the station, the crew removed the cargo that included new scientific gear. You can read more about the ongoing operations on the ISS here.

Weekend Reading: The Health Hazards of Space Travel: Novel Insights from Quantum Biology

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A graphic from 2014 showing NASA’s approach to a human presence on Mars. This has been superseded by the Artemis program, but many elements remain the same. (NASA)

Yesterday’s post highlighted the dangers involved in low-Earth orbit travel, while another earlier posting mentioned a book by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith who wrote “A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?“

Well, the evidence continues to build on the difficulty of space travel and the need for greater study. This time its a report from The Guy Foundation in England, established by Geoffrey and Kate Guy to “facilitate exploration into quantum effects in biology and the role it could play in advancing medicine.” The 94-page report is titled The Health Hazards of Space Travel: Novel Insights from Quantum Biology.

You can read it this weekend at your leisure, but the bottom line is stated succinctly in the executive summary, further summarized here:

  • ...space travel seems likely to induce accelerated ageing in astronauts…associated with the disruption of cellular bioenergetics which could have other, perhaps more worrying health consequences.
  • …complex long-lived organisms, such as humans, will not be able to adapt to the unnatural environment of space, while shorter-lived, rapidly evolving ones, such as bacteria will.
  • At this stage, the following factors seem particularly significant…
    • zero gravity…;
    • {i}ncreased radiation…;
    • [t]he lack of a magnetic field…; and
    • [a] lack of near-infrared radiation.
  • Further experiments are urgently needed to improve our understanding of the underlying causes of space-induced ill health, and potential approaches to mitigate it.

The bottom line is that if we want to spread more than bacteria throughout the solar system and beyond, we need to get to work on these issues.

I am hoping Mr. Musk and friends are reading this before jumping off a cliff (or Earth in this case) with Mars-bound Starships. In fact, it may encourage Mr. Musk to use some of his funds to study these issues rather than play games with politics here are Earth. The $47 billion spent on Twitter would have gone a long way to help Mr. Musk achieve his dream of a Mars-based society, if that really is his dream.

Space Quote: Do Not Take Any “Normal” Operations for Granted

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft approaching the ISS on March 16, 2023. (NASA)

“When you look at these recent incidents over the last handful of weeks, it does lead one say that it’s apparent that operating safely requires significant attention to detail as hardware ages and the pace of operations increases…Both NASA and SpaceX need to maintain focus on safe Crew Dragon operations and not take any ‘normal’ operations for granted.”

-Statement by Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) committee member Kent Rominger, as quoted by Space News, regarding recent SpaceX mishaps, including three recent Falcon 9 rocket issues as well as a parachute problem during the October 25th return of Crew-8 on a Dragon capsule from the International Space Station (ISS). After the splashdown, all four astronauts were hospitalized for observation.