Figure 2 of IG report, annotated further by me.

According to a report released today [pdf] by NASA’s inspector general (IG), NASA’s launch infrastructure at both the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia are aging and need upgrades, but there is a systemic limitation on NASA’s access to funds to do the work.

The IG report — as is always expected from such a government report — of course whines about the lack of funding in recent NASA budgets, noting that Congress recently allocated $250 million for this purpose, but NASA claims it needs four times that amount, or $1 billion.

The report however also recognizes that this not the real problem. The map to the right, Figure 2 from the report, has been further annotated by me to show who is leasing or using each launch complex at both the Kennedy Space Center (managed by NASA) and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (managed by the military but also supported significantly by NASA). As you can see, almost all launch sites are either leased by private rocket companies, or are being primed for future such leases. Yet, “statutory funding barriers” limit how much money NASA can collect from these companies. From the report’s conclusion:

Going forward, it is also vital for NASA to have a means to collect funds from commercial partners for their increasing use of the Agency’s launch infrastructure. Since 2020, commercial launches represented approximately 70 percent of all launches supported by Kennedy and Wallops. Yet, statutory funding barriers prevent the Agency from receiving money directly from these partners for infrastructure and the Agency’s cost recovery practices have limited the amounts collected from them.

NASA initiated efforts a decade ago to establish an Infrastructure Investment Fund that would allow the Agency to accept contributions from non-federal sources for long-term, large-scale shared infrastructure projects. However, legislation authorizing such a fund has yet to pass.

In our judgement, without an Infrastructure Investment Fund and analyses of whether additional indirect rates should be charged to commercial partners for launch services, it will be difficult for NASA to fund the infrastructure upgrades required to meet the launch needs of the Agency and the nation.

In other words, Congress has to change the law so that NASA can reasonably charge these companies for the use and maintenance of the common infrastructure (power, communications, and roads). This would be a far better solution than simply giving NASA a bigger budget. The companies are making money leasing these launch sites. It is perfectly reasonable to ask them to pay their fair share for maintaining the spaceport’s basic equipment that allows those launch sites to function.

An even better solution: Transfer both Kennedy and Wallops to private entities, and get NASA out of this business entirely. It will eventually no longer be launching its SLS rocket, and will then no longer need any pads of its own. At that point it will simply hire private rocket companies, who will in turn lease their pads from private sources. Let these spaceports become private as well.

The report also outlines in detail the situation at the Wallops Island spaceport, including who is leasing or using its various launch pads. Besides NASA and the Pentagon, Rocket Lab, Northrop Grumman, and Firefly are the private lessors. The report also found that recent upgrades at Wallops is keeping more ahead of the curve than at Kennedy.