NASA IG: NASA’s effort to build new SLS mobile launcher is an epic disaster
NASA’s bloated SLS mobile launchers
According to a new report [pdf] from NASA’s inspector general, both NASA and its contractor Bechtel have allowed the cost and schedule for the new larger SLS mobile launcher (ML-2) (on the right in the graphic) to go completely out of control, with the first launch on that platform to be delayed again until 2029.
NASA projects the ML-2 will cost over three times more than planned. In 2019, NASA estimated the entire ML-2 project from design through construction would cost under $500 million with construction completed and the ML-2 delivered to NASA by March 2023. In December 2023, NASA estimated the ML-2 project would cost $1.5 billion, including $1.3 billion for the Bechtel contract and $168 million for other project costs, with delivery of the launcher to NASA in November 2026. In June 2024, NASA established the Agency Baseline Commitment (ABC)—the cost and schedule baseline committed to Congress against which a project is measured—for a ML-2 project cost of $1.8 billion and a delivery date of September 2027. Even with the establishment of the ABC, NASA intends to keep Bechtel accountable to the cost and schedule agreed to in December 2023.
Despite the Agency’s increased cost projections, our analysis indicates costs could be even higher due in part to the significant amount of construction work that remains. Specifically, our projections indicate the total cost could reach $2.7 billion by the time Bechtel delivers the ML-2 to NASA. With the time NASA requires after delivery to prepare the launcher, we project the ML-2 will not be ready to support a launch until spring 2029, surpassing the planned September2028 Artemis IV launch date.
This quote actually makes things sounder better than they are. Bechtel’s original contract was for $383 million, which means the IG’s present final estimate of $2.7 billion is more than seven times higher. The contract was awarded in 2019 and was supposed to be completed by 2023, in four years. Instead, at best it will take Bechtel a decade to complete the job.
The IG notes that this contact was cost-plus, and considers this the main cause of these cost overruns. It also notes that NASA has had the option to convert the contract to fixed-price, but has chosen not to do so.
Possibly the most damning aspect of the IG report is its conclusion, which essentially admits that nothing can be done to fix this problem.
To improve NASA’s management of the ML-2 project, we recommended the Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate: (1) ensure lessons learned from the ML-2’s acquisition, contract, and project management are codified to inform future development efforts and (2) conduct a thorough analysis of the feasibility of utilizing the fixed-price option, and if NASA determines that it will not be exercised, remove the option from the ML-2 contract.
In other words, it is okay for government agencies to spend endless amounts of money without any real results, as long as we make believe we care.
Note that this is not the first IG report detailing this disaster. A report in 2022 essentially came to the same conclusions, but like now nothing was done to fix the problem. Instead, it was allowed to grow even worse.
Note also that NASA already spent $1 billion building the first smaller mobile launcher (on the left in the graphic above), and plans to use it on only three launches, at most, before retiring it. In other words, NASA will spend $3.7 billion on two SLS mobile launchers.
Starship stacked on Superheavy, September 5, 2023,
when Elon Musk said it was ready for its second
test launch
Compare this insanity with SpaceX and its Starship/Superheavy rocket. The entire development cost of that rocket is probably less than $10 billion. To move both Starship and Superheavy from their assembly buildings to the launchpad or to a test stand SpaceX uses a quickly upgraded version of a construction transport vehicle. The cost for these vehicles, which are very simple, was probably less than $100 million, and likely much much less than that.
In addition, SpaceX did not attempt to combine its launch tower with these transport vehicles. When NASA built the first mobile launcher for the Saturn-5 in the 1960s, the idea of moving a giant rocket about was radical and untested. NASA decided to put the tower on the transport vehicle to make sure the rocket would be held securely in an upright position.
SpaceX however recognized — based on the past sixty years of rocketry — that this was not necessary. To save money, it separated transport from launch. As a result, not only were the transport vehicles cheap, but the cost to build the tower was reduced, so much so that SpaceX has now almost completed four (two at Boca Chica and two at Kennedy). And it did so for pennies compared to NASA’s mobile launcher disaster.
Ah, government. It is probably the most efficient waster of money and talent ever invented by human beings.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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NASA’s bloated SLS mobile launchers
According to a new report [pdf] from NASA’s inspector general, both NASA and its contractor Bechtel have allowed the cost and schedule for the new larger SLS mobile launcher (ML-2) (on the right in the graphic) to go completely out of control, with the first launch on that platform to be delayed again until 2029.
NASA projects the ML-2 will cost over three times more than planned. In 2019, NASA estimated the entire ML-2 project from design through construction would cost under $500 million with construction completed and the ML-2 delivered to NASA by March 2023. In December 2023, NASA estimated the ML-2 project would cost $1.5 billion, including $1.3 billion for the Bechtel contract and $168 million for other project costs, with delivery of the launcher to NASA in November 2026. In June 2024, NASA established the Agency Baseline Commitment (ABC)—the cost and schedule baseline committed to Congress against which a project is measured—for a ML-2 project cost of $1.8 billion and a delivery date of September 2027. Even with the establishment of the ABC, NASA intends to keep Bechtel accountable to the cost and schedule agreed to in December 2023.
Despite the Agency’s increased cost projections, our analysis indicates costs could be even higher due in part to the significant amount of construction work that remains. Specifically, our projections indicate the total cost could reach $2.7 billion by the time Bechtel delivers the ML-2 to NASA. With the time NASA requires after delivery to prepare the launcher, we project the ML-2 will not be ready to support a launch until spring 2029, surpassing the planned September2028 Artemis IV launch date.
This quote actually makes things sounder better than they are. Bechtel’s original contract was for $383 million, which means the IG’s present final estimate of $2.7 billion is more than seven times higher. The contract was awarded in 2019 and was supposed to be completed by 2023, in four years. Instead, at best it will take Bechtel a decade to complete the job.
The IG notes that this contact was cost-plus, and considers this the main cause of these cost overruns. It also notes that NASA has had the option to convert the contract to fixed-price, but has chosen not to do so.
Possibly the most damning aspect of the IG report is its conclusion, which essentially admits that nothing can be done to fix this problem.
To improve NASA’s management of the ML-2 project, we recommended the Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate: (1) ensure lessons learned from the ML-2’s acquisition, contract, and project management are codified to inform future development efforts and (2) conduct a thorough analysis of the feasibility of utilizing the fixed-price option, and if NASA determines that it will not be exercised, remove the option from the ML-2 contract.
In other words, it is okay for government agencies to spend endless amounts of money without any real results, as long as we make believe we care.
Note that this is not the first IG report detailing this disaster. A report in 2022 essentially came to the same conclusions, but like now nothing was done to fix the problem. Instead, it was allowed to grow even worse.
Note also that NASA already spent $1 billion building the first smaller mobile launcher (on the left in the graphic above), and plans to use it on only three launches, at most, before retiring it. In other words, NASA will spend $3.7 billion on two SLS mobile launchers.
Starship stacked on Superheavy, September 5, 2023,
when Elon Musk said it was ready for its second
test launch
Compare this insanity with SpaceX and its Starship/Superheavy rocket. The entire development cost of that rocket is probably less than $10 billion. To move both Starship and Superheavy from their assembly buildings to the launchpad or to a test stand SpaceX uses a quickly upgraded version of a construction transport vehicle. The cost for these vehicles, which are very simple, was probably less than $100 million, and likely much much less than that.
In addition, SpaceX did not attempt to combine its launch tower with these transport vehicles. When NASA built the first mobile launcher for the Saturn-5 in the 1960s, the idea of moving a giant rocket about was radical and untested. NASA decided to put the tower on the transport vehicle to make sure the rocket would be held securely in an upright position.
SpaceX however recognized — based on the past sixty years of rocketry — that this was not necessary. To save money, it separated transport from launch. As a result, not only were the transport vehicles cheap, but the cost to build the tower was reduced, so much so that SpaceX has now almost completed four (two at Boca Chica and two at Kennedy). And it did so for pennies compared to NASA’s mobile launcher disaster.
Ah, government. It is probably the most efficient waster of money and talent ever invented by human beings.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
From the point of view of the politicians, executives of the contracting company and the union guys who put it together, the money was certainly not “wasted.”
As Tim Dodd put it today, “What’s crazy to think about is that the world’s largest building, the Burj Khalifa, cost roughly $1.5 billion. Think about the engineering & the amount of finishing needed in a project like that versus a steel tower w/ some pipes & electrical… I just don’t get it.”
It will cost more for the transport system for the Artemis than the entire contract that SpaceX got for the Human Lander System?? Tim Dodd nailed it.
Unbelievable.
Here is a video of a chance encounter between a civilian and the SpaceX Starship traveling down a road. Waaaay cool. It is a short, sweet video.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-mR0yp5nSzw
I guarantee you that China will fly its first phase human lunar missions (the first ones, using two boosters) more than once while the monstrous costs of SLS/Orion/ML-1,2/etc. prevent any NASA human missions.
Hey, maybe VP Berz can negotiate a US citizen to fly on the last of China’s missions of that type before they switch to their Starship knockoff..
(This is assuming of course that the actual Starship is also prevented by who know what foot-dragging gov. interference from gettin to Luna before then.)
It’s like we’re all Sysyphus in Hades…
Eric Berger has a new article up at Ars Technica this evening which explains just why NASA has little ability now to control Bechtel’s (mis)management of ML-2:
One of the major takeaways from the new report is that NASA appears to be pretty limited in what it can do to motivate Bechtel to build the mobile launch tower more quickly or at a more reasonable price. The cost-plus contracting mechanism gives the space agency limited leverage over the contractor beyond withholding award fees. The report notes that NASA has declined to exercise an option to convert the contract to a fixed-price mechanism.
“While the option officially remains in the contract, NASA officials informed us they do not intend to request a fixed-price proposal from Bechtel,” the report states. “(Exploration Ground Systems) Program and ML-2 project management told us they presume Bechtel would likely provide a cost proposal far beyond NASA’s budgetary capacity to account for the additional risk that comes with a fixed-price contract.”
In other words, since NASA did not initially require a fixed price contract, it now sounds like any bid from Bechtel would completely blow a hole in the agency’s annual budget.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasas-second-large-launch-tower-has-gotten-stupidly-expensive/
Depressing.
The Burj Khalifa $1.5 billion comparison makes it even worse. Goverment and industrial corruption to the highest degree, the higher ups at NASA and Bechtel that did this, are no better than the Executive’s at Enron. Why would you build 2 towers planning to throw the first one away after a few flights, why would you do that, unless it was just to milk more money.
Meanwhile, Starship will keep truckin’ along its development pathway, more giant infrastructure for it will continue to appear, Jared and friends will ride it to LEO for a first time while long since having reached a deal with SpaceX for a Polaris 4 mission that would match or exceed the now-cancelled Dear Moon and a Polaris 5 that would use both the Dear Moon-class Starship and a next-gen HLS variant that can accommodate a larger crew of mixed NASA and commercial astronauts to conduct the first at least quasi-private Moon landing mission.
In an absolutely ideal universe, Polaris 5 would replace the Artemis 4 mission and be the model for future such missions, with or without NASA participation, while Jared readies afterward for Polaris 6, the first human expedition to Mars.
This scenario would be greatly assisted if God, say, were to see to it that the attempt to launch Artemis 4 fails when the debut of the incredibly dodgy Exploration Upper Stage results in its explosion on the pad which would take out the core stage and solid boosters as well along with Bechtel’s misbegotten launch tower and the piece of Gateway riding just under the EUS. If the boosters were to fall over, ignite and fly sideways into the VAB and take it down too, that would be icing on the cake.
The four astronauts in Orion, of course, would be yanked to safety by Orion’s massive launch escape system and deposited safely in the drink a mile or so offshore. This would preserve them from featuring tragically in the fireworks display that could result from an EUS RUD at altitude and speed, especially one that occurred after the launch escape system had already been jettisoned. Bring them all back and assign them to be the NASA contingent for Polaris 5. Keep everyone happy.
Everyone but the SLS-Orion-etc. contractors, that is. With all the objectionably pointless and expensive parts of Artemis in flinders, those aspects of the program could finally be cancelled and sanity restored to NASA’s manned spaceflight efforts – however modest those will quickly come to seem alongside SpaceX’s lunar and Mars programs which it will be flying for its own account.
I know, I know, it’s a wild and beautiful dream, but it’s the romantic in me.
Technically they built three towers. 1 at LC 39A and two in Boca Chica. They actually built the parts for tower #2 for Boca Chica in Florida and barged them to Texas. So they built the pieces for the third tower in FLorida, but mounted/assembled it in Texas.
But 3 vs 4 is still more than Bechtel.
Here’s a question: Why did they have to build a new tower in the first place? From the picture it looks like they could add another section to raise the height and move the various gantries to fit.
When mentioning one of the few options NASA has to motivate Bechtel to do better is to withhold “award fees”. And so they have – they’ve held back $10M of a pool of $23M incentive awards. The IG argues they should have withheld an additional $3M.
Let’s look at this incentive plan:
Award fees withheld: $. 12,000,000
Initial contract cost: $ 383,000,000
Actual current contract cost: $1,100,000,000
Actual current Bechtel overruns: $ 594,000,000
Anticipated contract cost (by IG): $2,700,000,000
Those award fees withheld? They are a rounding error on Bechtel’s P&L statement. Not even worth pointing out the loss of those awards in their 10-Ks. Nobody cares. No incentive (or disincentive) at all. (And, if it was important to someone at Bechtel it could be easily made up by simply adding another 2% (that is: TWO percent) to the current overrun on their cost-plus contract.)
Rocket J Squrrel: Why indeed? I am sure if you asked people at NASA and at Boeing (the chief contractor on SLS), they would come up with lots of reasons why adding another section won’t work.
And though those reasons might make sense, we all know the real reason is the final cost of the contract. In the world of cost-plus government contracting, budget overruns like this are really a feature, not a bug.
Rocket J Squrrel asks:
“Here’s a question: Why did they have to build a new tower in the first place? From the picture it looks like they could add another section to raise the height and move the various gantries to fit.”
The lower portions of the tower structure can’t support the weight. It is actually questionable at the original height and the first MLV that will get discarded after three uses is barely good for that many, it’s going to be discarded for more reasons than just that the rocket wont match up anymore. Many of the delays and overruns on the second tower are caused because Bechtel got a lot further along than they should have before realizing that even their new design for the higher tower was under-engineered. And of course as has already been covered, their attitude to issues like this is “Yay, more billable work!”
”I am sure if you asked people at NASA and at Boeing (the chief contractor on SLS)…”
Boeing is not the prime contractor for SLS and has nothing to do with the MLPs.
All this for DEI footprints on the moon.
I do hope that PRESIDENT TRUMP asks MR. MUSK to recommend a FEW of his TOP ENGINEERS to HEAD NASA! Imagine what an AUDIT of NASA would uncover!!
I remember back in the 80’s we had all the unemployed “Yankees” moving SOUTH for jobs. One of the worst critics was “that’s not how we did it up North”! And then I’d reply “So why did you move down here”?? Now if the SpaceX people were given Roles at NASA and they said “That’s not how we do it at SpaceX” then I’d say “That’s great – show us the CORRECT way that results in ON TIME and BELOW BUDGET”!!
Oh wait, didn’t the segment of excrement oblama change the MISSION of NASA to be a muslim outreach mission?? I do hope THAT expired with his disastrous regime!
At what point is it easier to move the rocket and launch tower or just move the building away on rails?
As we all can see Space X gets around this by just stacking the sections outside in the open.
Nasa still has that ‘clean room’ attitude.
At what point is it easier to move the rocket and launch tower or just move the building away on rails?
See also SLC-6 (aka Slick six)
Robert wrote: “Compare this insanity with SpaceX and its Starship/Superheavy rocket. The entire development cost of that rocket is probably less than $10 billion.”
We have a means to estimate the money spent so far. Last year, SpaceX filed a motion to join the FAA as a defendant in a lawsuit that directly affected the company.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/spacex-files-to-join-faa-as-defendant-in-lawsuit-trying-to-shut-down-boca-chica/
From the document filed for SpaceX’s motion to intervene:
Elsewhere in the filing we learn the beginning date for this investment:
From these we know that Between July 9, 2014 and May 2023 SpaceX had spent more than $3 billion but less than $4 billion, probably much less or SpaceX would have written that they had spent nearly four billion dollars.
Other news reports around that time said that SpaceX intended to spend $2 billion per year to complete developing Starship and its infrastructure. With that in mind, we can extrapolate that SpaceX has now spent more than $5 billion but probably not more than $6 billion on Starship development and all its ground facilities.
NASA’s Human Landing System contract complicates this analysis a little bit, but I think we can be sure that SpaceX has not yet spent much nor collected much on that contract, so far.
Some of the development money was “wasted” on lessons learned. SpaceX has spent a lot of money replacing and improving upon previously-built ground equipment and retiring flight test hardware without flying it, yet it is being surprisingly innovative for far less cost than others who are repeating previous methods. That the company is so easily willing to abandon equipment for improvements shows how inexpensively it does things. For this development, few things are so valuable that they aren’t expendable.
NASA, on the other hand, committed itself early on with its Constellation design. Congress had its hand in rocket design by directing that Shuttle contractors and their products be used in this next generation of NASA rocket. The design was not flexible enough to recover easily from a major design flaw, and the answer turned out to be cancellation of the project. Projects are rarely cancelled. Congress still wanted Shuttle contractors employed, so they demanded NASA make the SLS rocket.
Robert also wrote: “To save money, it separated transport from launch.”
Not only were these separated, but stacking the rocket occurs at the launch pad, not before transport. This further simplifies the process and reduces the need for a Vertical Assembly Building for Starship (please note: NASA’s VAB is now called the Vehicle Assembly Building) and simplifies the transportation of the Starship sections and the stacking of the rocket section by using “chopsticks”* at the launch gantry tower. NASA built a ramp for its Saturn launch pads, and SpaceX simplified its own pads by avoiding that complication. SpaceX is trying to avoid the expensive factors of the Apollo program (and other rockets), but this means that they are making other mistakes that other commercial space companies can avoid on their own future versions of reusable super-heavy launch vehicles.
For some reason, NASA failed to learn similar lessons from Apollo and other rockets, so it is making some of the same mistakes that it had made in the 1960s. Perhaps we should not be surprised, because after the disastrous Shuttle project, Congress directed that NASA abandon reusability and fall back to the methods used in the 1960s.
We were supposed to save money by reusing the Space Shuttle’s main engines and SRBs and by redesigning the Shuttle’s External Tank, but this has backfired. Somehow, turning the main engines from reusable to expendable made them four times more expensive, not less expensive. Reusing Apollo’s ground support equipment (e.g. crawler and mobile launch pads) likewise are ending up with greater costs than anticipated.
Perhaps worse, the once-respected Bechtel corporation is being exposed as incompetent. Artemis is a high profile project, and to perform this badly harms their reputation. One wonders what happened to them. Could they have been corrupted by the cost-plus acquisition system** and its inherent incentives to slip schedule and to go over budget?
From the Inspector General’s report, this does not sound like changing requirements is driving the cost increases and schedule slips:
_______________
* The chopsticks replace the concept of using a crane to stack the rocket, which eliminates the non-aerodynamic lift points on Starship — points that would be difficult to protect from the heat of reentry, slowing down turnaround time.
Then some crazy person at some meeting blurts out, jokingly, “Gee, maybe we could use those chopsticks to catch the booster and also the spacecraft on landing, eliminating the weight of landing legs and keeping the rocket sections at the tower and launch mount for rapid turnaround.” Then some moron says, seriously, “That’s a great idea!” When Elon Musk said, “Make it so,” the engineers assigned to making it work took the crazy person and the moron outside and lined them up against a wall. I wonder if they offered blindfolds and last cigarettes.
** Cost-plus was created to account for cases in which something has never been done before, cases in which there is no experience to estimate the cost of a project. Project Apollo and its lunar lander are two examples of never-before-done engineering feats. SLS was supposed to be almost the same as Apollo, which had been done before, and space stations have been built and operated before, so the Gateway lunar space station is not so wildly new, just the orbit is.
Half a century of cost-plus contracting has made America’s aerospace contractors lazy and greedy. No wonder NASA Administrator Nelson thinks cost-plus contracts are a plague on us (thank you Richard M for that link).*** No wonder SpaceX and Rocket Lab are running circles around government projects and ULA. Not only are they efficient, they are innovative.
*** https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasas-second-large-launch-tower-has-gotten-stupidly-expensive/
Eric Berger wrote:
There were very good reasons why a second ML was required.
ML1 was built for the Ares I rocket and could barely be retrofited to support the much heavier SLS Block 1.
The structure of the ML and the CTs supporting Block 1B with its heavier EUS umbilicals, larger LH2 GSE plumbing and much heavier upper stage and Block 2 with even heavier SRBs would be out of the question without effectively a complete ML rebuild to reduce weight, at which point you’re better off starting clean slate on an SLS purpose built ML, which ended up being ML2.
That also gets you the benefit of not having to wait four years after the last Block 1 flight for the ML rebuild to be finished until you can launch the first Block 1B.
Instead you can start building the Block 1B/2 ML while you’re launching Block 1 and by the time you’re done with that you can start preparing the first Block 1B almost immediately, which was the primary reason NASA leadership pitched the idea to Congress back in 2017/2018, they wanted to get rid of that four year iron bar in the SLS manifest.