NASA’s Second Mobile Launcher is Too Heavy, Years Late, and Pushing $1 Billion
upstart writes:
NASA's second mobile launcher is too heavy, years late, and pushing $1 billion:
Three years ago, NASA awarded a cost-plus contract to the engineering firm Bechtel for the design and construction of a large, mobile launch tower. The 118-meter tower will support the fueling and liftoff of a larger and more capable version of NASA's Space Launch System rocket that may make its debut during the second half of this decade.
When Bechtel won the contract for this mobile launcher, named ML-2, it was supposed to cost $383 million. But according to a scathing new report by NASA's inspector general, the project is already running years behind schedule, the launcher weighs too much, and the whole thing is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. The new cost estimate for the project is $960 million.
"We found Bechtel's poor performance is the main reason for the significant projected cost increases," the report, signed by Inspector General Paul Martin, states. The report finds that Bechtel underestimated the project's scope and complexity. In turn, Bechtel officials sought to blame some of the project's cost increases on the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of this spring, NASA had already obligated $435.6 million to the project. However, despite these ample funding awards, as of May, design work for the massive launch tower was still incomplete, Martin reports. In fact, Bechtel now does not expect construction to begin until the end of calendar year 2022 at the earliest.
The report cites a litany of mistakes by the contractor, Bechtel, but does not spare NASA from criticism. For example, Martin said that NASA awarded the contract to Bechtel before the specifications for the Space Launch System rocket's upper stage were finalized. (The major upgrade to the rocket will come via a more powerful second stage, known as the Exploration Upper Stage, or EUS). This lack of final requirements to accommodate the EUS hindered design of the mobile launch tower, which must power and fuel the rocket on the ground.
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