WASHINGTON \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
In a June 24 memo<\/a>, NASA\u2019s Office of Inspector General, or OIG, offered its initial assessment of the projects as part of an ongoing audit, linked to NASA\u2019s decision earlier this year to end development of the Space Launch System\u2019s Block 1B variant<\/a> and the lunar Gateway<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cOver 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,\u201d the memo concluded. \u201cHowever, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n For EUS, NASA originally allocated $962 million to Boeing to build the more powerful upper stage as part of the company\u2019s existing SLS contract. By March, that cost estimate had grown to $2.9 billion, with OIG projecting that cost would likely have grown to $3.7 billion. Completion of the stage slipped from March 2021 to no earlier than August 2028.<\/p>\n USA, an adapter designed to connect the Orion spacecraft to the EUS, was being built by Dynetics (now part of Leidos) under a contract awarded in 2017 valued at $131 million, with the first adapter to be completed by August 2021. That cost nearly tripled to $353 million, with a delivery date of September 2028, although OIG projected the cost to grow further to $497 million, with a May 2030 delivery date.<\/p>\n