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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Committees: 

March 2012: 

NASA: 

Assessments of Selected Large-Scale Projects: 

GAO-12-207SP: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-12-207SP, a report to congressional committees. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

This is GAO’s fourth annual assessment of the National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration’s (NASA) large-scale projects. GAO’s work has 
shown that these projects, while producing ground-breaking research 
and advancing our understanding of the universe, tend to cost more and 
take longer to develop than planned, and are often approved without 
evidence of a sound business case. GAO has designated NASA’s 
acquisition management a high risk area. 

In response to congressional direction, GAO reviewed NASA's major 
projects. Specifically, this report provides observations about the 
performance of NASA's major projects, assesses knowledge attained at 
key junctures of development, identifies challenges that can 
contribute to cost and schedule growth, and outlines steps NASA is 
taking to improve its acquisitions. To conduct this review, GAO 
assessed data on 21 projects with an estimated life-cycle cost of over 
$250 million, including data on projects’ cost, schedule, technology 
maturity, design stability, and contracts; analyzed monthly project 
status reports; and interviewed NASA and contractor officials. GAO 
also reviewed project cost estimates and interviewed officials 
responsible for NASA’s cost estimation policy. 

What GAO Found: 

GAO assessed 21 NASA projects with a combined life-cycle cost that 
exceeds $43 billion. Of those 21 projects, 6 were in an early phase of 
development called formulation, and 15 had entered the implementation 
phase where cost and schedule baselines were established. Five of the 
15 projects in implementation successfully launched in 2011, and two 
of them met their cost and schedule baselines. NASA’s largest science 
project-—the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)-—however, has 
experienced development cost growth of $3.6 billion-—or 140 percent-—
and a schedule delay of over 4 years. While the development cost and 
schedule for most of the projects in implementation remained 
relatively stable, the impact of the JWST increases on the portfolio 
is significant. For example, 14 of the 15 projects currently in 
implementation, excluding JWST, had an average development cost growth 
of $79 million-—or 14.6 percent-—and schedule growth of 8 months from 
their baselines. With JWST, these numbers increase dramatically to 
almost 47 percent and 11 months, respectively. Cost and schedule 
increases within NASA’s most technologically advanced and costly 
projects, such as JWST, can have cascading effects on the rest of NASA’
s portfolio. For example, the administration has proposed to terminate 
funding for the joint NASA/ESA EMTGO project, and another large 
project in our review—the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)-—experienced 
substantial cost overruns that led NASA to take funding from other 
projects. MSL and JWST account for approximately $11.4 billion—-or 51 
percent-—of the total life-cycle costs for the 15 projects in 
implementation during our review. 

Most of the projects that GAO reviewed did not meet technology 
maturity and design stability best practices criteria, which if 
followed can lessen cost and schedule risks faced by the project. 
Specifically, 10 of the 16 projects that held a preliminary design 
review moved forward without first maturing technologies. In addition, 
13 of the 14 projects that held a critical design review did so 
without first achieving design stability. Some projects reported using 
other methods to assess design stability. Many of the projects GAO 
reviewed for this report also experienced challenges in the areas of 
launch vehicles, contractor management, parts, development partner 
performance, and funding. For example, nine projects we reviewed 
reported challenges with launch vehicles, including their increasing 
cost and availability. New launch vehicles are in development, but 
have not yet been certified, and another vehicle has failed on its two 
most recent flights. 

The agency is continuing its implementation of initiatives to reduce 
acquisition management risk. One prominent effort is the Joint Cost 
and Schedule Confidence Level (JCL), a new cost estimation tool that 
involves a probabilistic analysis of cost, schedule, and risk inputs 
to arrive at development cost and schedule estimates associated with 
various confidence levels. Five projects GAO reviewed have completed a 
JCL. NASA officials stated a few projects have excluded or not fully 
considered relevant cost inputs and risks, such as launch vehicle 
costs. GAO was unable to confirm that the five projects that prepared 
estimates using the JCL were budgeted at the approved confidence 
level. NASA has not yet launched a project that prepared a JCL; 
therefore, NASA officials stated it will take several years to 
evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the JCL in improving cost and 
schedule estimating for its major projects. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO is not making any new recommendations in this report, but has made 
prior recommendations to address transparency in project costs and the 
lack of consistent design metrics; NASA concurred and is taking steps 
to address them. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-207SP]. For more 
information, contact Cristina Chaplain at (202) 512-4841 or 
chaplainc@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

Observations on NASA's Portfolio of Major Projects: 

Observations from Our Assessment of Knowledge Attained by Key 
Junctures in the Acquisition Process: 

Observations on Other Challenges That Can Affect Project Outcomes: 

Observations about NASA's Continued Efforts to Improve Its Acquisition 
Management: 

Project Assessments:
Aquarius:
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (EMTGO):
Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission:
Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL):
Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2):
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST):
Juno:
Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM):
Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE):
Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS):
Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN):
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL):
NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP):
Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2):
Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV):
Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP):
Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP):
Solar Probe Plus (SPP):
Space Launch System (SLS):
Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA):
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) Replenishment: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Comments from the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration: 

Appendix II: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix III: Selected Major NASA Projects Reviewed in GAO's Annual 
Assessments: 

Appendix IV: Technology Readiness Levels: 

Appendix V: Significant Accomplishments of Projects That Have Launched: 

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: 21 Selected Major NASA Projects Reviewed in GAO's 2012 Annual 
Assessment: 

Table 2: Development Cost and Schedule Growth of Selected Major NASA 
Projects Currently in the Implementation Phase: 

Table 3: Selected Major NASA Projects Reviewed in GAO's Annual 
Assessments: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: NASA's Life Cycle for Flight Systems: 

Figure 2: Launch Date and Life-Cycle Cost for 15 Major NASA Projects 
in Implementation: 

Figure 3: JWST's Cumulative Development Cost Growth Compared to the 
Total Life-Cycle Cost Estimates for Seven Selected Major NASA Projects: 

Figure 4: Percentage of Selected Major NASA Projects Meeting and Not 
Meeting Technology Maturity Criteria at Preliminary Design Review: 

Figure 5: Average Number of Critical Technologies Reported for 
Selected Major NASA Projects Reviewed from 2009 to 2012: 

Figure 6: Percentage of Engineering Drawings Releasable at CDR for 
Selected Major NASA Projects: 

Figure 7: Comparison of Design Drawings Increase for 20 Major NASA 
Projects That Have Held CDR prior to and since Fiscal Year 2009: 

Figure 8: Illustration of a Project's 2-Page Summary: 

Abbreviations: 

AFB: Air Force Base: 

AFS: Air Force Station: 

ASI: Argenzia Spaciale Italiana (Italian Space Agency): 

ATLAS: Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System: 

CDDS: Cavity Door Drive System: 

CDR: critical design review: 

CONAE: Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (Space Agency of 
Argentina): 

CSA: Canadian Space Agency: 

DCI: data collection instrument: 

DPR: dual-frequency precipitation radar: 

DSN: Deep Space Network: 

DWSS: Defense Weather Satellite System: 

EDL: entry, descent, and landing: 

EEE: electrical, electronic, and electromechanical: 

EMTGO: ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter: 

ESA: European Space Agency: 

EVM: earned value management: 

FAA: Federal Aviation Administration: 

FORCAST: Faint Object Infrared Camera for the SOFIA Telescope: 

FPI: Fast Plasma Investigation: 

GLAST: Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope: 

GMI: GPM microwave imager: 

GPM: Global Precipitation Measurement (mission): 

GPS: Global Positioning System: 

GRAIL: Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory: 

GREAT: German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies: 

HEPS: High Efficiency Power Supply: 

HOPE: Helium-Oxygen-Proton-Electron: 

ICESat-2: Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2: 

IPO: Integrated Program Office: 

ISIM: Integrated Science Instrument Module: 

ISS: International Space Station: 

JADE I: Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment-Ion I: 

JAXA: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency: 

JCL: Joint Cost and Schedule Confidence Level: 

JIRAM: Jupiter InfraRed Auroral Mapper: 

JPL: Jet Propulsion Laboratory: 

JPSS: Joint Polar Satellite System: 

JWST: James Webb Space Telescope: 

KDP: key decision point: 

LADEE: Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer: 

LDCM: Landsat Data Continuity Mission: 

LLCD: Lunar Laser Com Demo: 

LRO: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: 

MagEIS: Magnetic Electron Ion Spectrometer: 

MAVEN: Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN: 

MDR: mission design review: 

MEP: Mars Exploration Program: 

MMS: Magnetospheric Multiscale: 

MPCV: Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle: 

MSL: Mars Science Laboratory: 

NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration: 

NGIMS: Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer: 

NID: NASA Interim Directive: 

NLS: NASA Launch Services: 

NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: 

NPR: NASA Procedural Requirements: 

NPOESS: National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite 
System: 

NPP: NPOESS Preparatory Project: 

NTIA: National Telecommunications and Information Administration: 

OCFO: Office of the Chief Financial Officer (NASA): 

OCO: Orbiting Carbon Observatory: 

PDR: preliminary design review: 

PFR: Problem/Failure Report: 

PSE: Power System Electronics: 

RBSP: Radiation Belt Storm Probes: 

SAC: Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas: 

SDO: Solar Dynamics Observatory: 

SID: Strategic Investments Division (NASA): 

SIR: System Integration Review: 

SLS: Space Launch System: 

SMAP: Soil Moisture Active and Passive: 

SPP: Solar Probe Plus: 

SOFIA: Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy: 

SRR: systems requirements review: 

TDRS: Tracking and Data Relay Satellite: 

TIRS: Thermal Infrared Sensor: 

TPS: Thermal Protection System: 

TRL: technology readiness level: 

USGS: U.S. Geological Survey: 

WISE: Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

March 1, 2012: 

Congressional Committees: 

This is GAO's fourth annual assessment of the National Aeronautics and 
Space Administration's (NASA) major projects. This report provides a 
snapshot of how well NASA is planning and executing its major 
acquisitions--an area that has been on GAO's high risk list since 
1990. Over the past 4 years, our review has covered a range of 
projects, such as robotic probes designed to explore the Martian 
surface and telescopes intended to explore the universe. NASA has 
launched many of the projects included in our reviews, and most of 
these projects are returning science results as intended (See appendix 
V for more details). For example, the Dawn spacecraft reached the 
solar system's second largest asteroid, Vesta, in July 2011 and is 
beaming back images and data to scientists about how the solar system 
formed. Since our last report, NASA successfully launched five 
projects. One of those projects, GRAIL, launched in September 2011, 
and its twin spacecraft recently entered orbit around the moon to 
begin its measurements of lunar gravity. 

The past year, however, has also continued to be a turbulent one for 
NASA's human spaceflight program and its largest science project. The 
Constellation program, which was NASA's largest program and was 
preliminarily estimated to cost in the tens of billions of dollars, 
was canceled after facing significant technical and funding issues. 
NASA spent most of the past year transitioning from the Constellation 
program to the new Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch 
System programs, as directed by Congress in the NASA Authorization Act 
of 2010.[Footnote 1] Despite being required to report to Congress 
within 90 days of enactment of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 on 
the designs for the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch 
System, the agency delayed for several months in order to perform cost 
estimates and study alternatives before issuing the report in 
September 2011. The cancellation of the Constellation program and 
transition to a new launch approach has likely increased the amount of 
time the United States will be without a human spaceflight capability. 
In addition, the James Webb Space Telescope project--NASA's largest 
science project--focused last year on responding to an independent 
review that reported problems with overall management, a lack of 
effective oversight, and a funding baseline that did not reflect the 
most probable cost and resulted in a project that was not executable. 
In addition to multiple changes to address management of the program, 
in October 2011, NASA announced a $3.7 billion cost increase and a 
launch delay of over 4 years that will have reverberating effects on 
the portfolio for years to come. Such issues continue to affect NASA's 
ability to conduct its ground-breaking work in an efficient and 
effective manner. 

NASA has taken steps in recent years to help improve its acquisition 
management through several initiatives aimed at improving cost 
estimating and management oversight. While the overall outcomes of 
these efforts will take time to become apparent, NASA has indicated 
that it continues to be committed to the initiatives with the goal of 
improving performance. 

The explanatory statement of the House Committee on Appropriations 
accompanying the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 directed GAO to 
prepare project status reports on selected large-scale NASA programs, 
projects, or activities[Footnote 2]. This report responds to that 
mandate. Specifically, we assess (1) performance of NASA's major 
projects and the agency's management of those projects during 
development, (2) knowledge attained by key junctures in the 
acquisition process, (3) other challenges that can affect project 
execution, and (4) NASA's continued efforts to improve its acquisition 
management. The report expands on the importance of providing decision-
makers with an independent, knowledge-based assessment of individual 
systems that identifies potential risks and allows them to take 
actions to put projects that are early in the development cycle in a 
better position to succeed. 

Our approach included an examination of the current phase of a 
project's development and of how the 21 projects were advancing. Each 
project we reviewed was in either the formulation phase or the 
implementation phase of the project life cycle, and had an estimated 
life-cycle cost of over $250 million. In the formulation phase, the 
project defines requirements--what the project is being designed to 
do--matures technology, establishes a schedule, estimates costs, and 
produces a plan for implementation. In the implementation phase, the 
project carries out these plans, performing final design and 
fabrication as well as testing components and system assembly, 
integrating these components and testing how they work together, and 
launching the project. This phase also includes the period from a 
project's launch through mission completion. NASA provided updated 
cost and schedule data as of January 2012 for projects in 
implementation during our review, or 15 of the 21 major projects; the 
remaining 6 were in formulation. We reviewed and compared that data to 
previously established cost and schedule baselines. We assessed the 15 
projects' cost and schedule and characterized growth as significant if 
it exceeded the thresholds that trigger cost or schedule growth 
reporting to the Congress under the law.[Footnote 3] In addition, NASA 
provided cost and schedule information for projects that have launched 
and that have been reported on in our prior work--see appendix III for 
a listing of projects covered in previous reports. We assessed 
technology maturity and design stability using established criteria 
for knowledge-based acquisitions and other GAO work on system 
acquisitions.[Footnote 4] Additionally, as a result of our analysis of 
interviews with project officials and information provided by the 
projects, we identified other challenges--funding, launch vehicles, 
contractor management, parts, and development partner performance--
that can affect project outcomes. This list of challenges is not 
exhaustive, and we believe these challenges will evolve, as they have 
in previous years, as we continue this work in the future. We took 
appropriate steps to address data reliability, such as clarifying data 
discrepancies and corroborating NASA-generated data with other sources 
where applicable. The individual project offices were given an 
opportunity to provide comments and technical clarifications on our 
assessments prior to their inclusion in the final product, which were 
incorporated as appropriate. Appendix II contains detailed information 
on our scope and methodology. 

We conducted this performance audit from March 2011 to March 2012 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We are not 
making recommendations in this report. 

Background: 

A Sound Business Case Underpins Successful Acquisition Outcomes: 

The development and execution of a knowledge-based business case for 
NASA's projects can provide early recognition of challenges, allow 
managers to take corrective action, and place needed and justifiable 
projects in a better position to succeed. Our studies of best practice 
organizations show the risks inherent in NASA's work can be mitigated 
by developing a solid, executable business case before committing 
resources to a new product's development.[Footnote 5] In its simplest 
form, a knowledge-based business case is evidence that (1) the 
customer's needs are valid and can best be met with the chosen concept 
and that (2) the chosen concept can be developed and produced within 
existing resources--that is, proven technologies, design knowledge, 
adequate funding, adequate time, and adequate workforce to deliver the 
product when needed. A program should not be approved to go forward 
into product development unless a sound business case can be made. If 
the business case measures up, the organization commits to the 
development of the product, including making the financial investment. 
Our work examining best practices has shown that developing business 
cases based on matching requirements to resources before a program 
starts leads to more predictable program outcomes--that is, programs 
are more likely to be successfully completed within cost and schedule 
estimates and deliver anticipated system performance.[Footnote 6] 

At the heart of a business case is a knowledge-based approach to 
product development, a best practice among leading commercial firms. 
Those firms have created an environment and adopted practices that put 
their program managers in a good position to meet expectations. A 
knowledge-based approach requires that managers demonstrate high 
levels of knowledge as the program proceeds from technology 
development to system development and, finally, production. In 
essence, knowledge reduces risk over time. This building of knowledge 
can be described over the course of a program as follows: 

* When a project begins development, the customer's needs should match 
the developer's available resources--mature technologies, time, and 
funding. An indication of this match is the demonstrated maturity of 
the technologies required to meet customer needs--referred to as 
critical technologies. If the project is relying on heritage--or pre-
existing--technology, that technology must be in the appropriate form, 
fit, and function to address the customer's needs within available 
resources. The project will generally enter development after 
completing the preliminary design review, at which time a business 
case should be in hand. 

* Then, about midway through the project's development, its design 
should be stable and demonstrate it is capable of meeting performance 
requirements. The critical design review takes place at that point in 
time because it generally signifies when the program is ready to start 
building production-representative prototypes. If project development 
continues without design stability, costly re-designs to address 
changes to project requirements and unforeseen challenges can occur. 

* Finally, by the time of the production decision, the product must be 
shown to be producible within cost, schedule, and quality targets and 
have demonstrated its reliability, and the design must demonstrate 
that it performs as needed through realistic system-level testing. 
Lack of testing increases the possibility that project managers will 
not have information that could help avoid costly system failures in 
late stages of development or during system operations. 

Our work examining best practices has identified numerous other 
actions that can be taken to increase the likelihood that a program 
can be successfully executed once that business case is established. 
These include ensuring cost estimates are complete, accurate and 
updated regularly, and holding suppliers accountable through such 
activities as regular supplier audits and performance evaluations of 
quality and delivery. Moreover, we have recommended using metrics and 
controls throughout the life cycle to gauge when the requisite level 
of knowledge has been attained and when to direct decision makers to 
consider criteria before advancing a program to the next level and 
making additional investments. 

NASA's Life Cycle for Flight Systems: 

NASA's life cycle for flight systems is defined by two phases--
formulation[Footnote 7] and implementation[Footnote 8]--and several 
key decision points. These phases are then further divided into 
incremental pieces: Phase A through Phase F. See figure 1 for a 
depiction of NASA's life cycle for flight systems. 

Figure 1: NASA's Life Cycle for Flight Systems: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Formulation:  

Pre-phase A: Concept Studies; 
Key decision point: KDP A; 
Phase A: Concept and Technology Development; 
Key decision point: KDP B; 
Technical review: SDR; 
Phase B: Preliminary Design and Technology Completion; 
Key decision point: KDP C (confirmation review); 
Technical review: FDR. 

Program Start:  

Phase C: Final Design and Fabrication; 
Technical review: CDR; 
Key decision point: KDP D; 
Technical review: SIR; 
Phase D: System Assembly, Integration and Test, Launch; 
Key decision point: KDP E; 
Phase E: Operations and Sustainment; 
Key decision point: KDP F; 
Phase F: Closeout; 
Implementation. 
   
Technical reviews: 
SDR = system definition review; 
PDR = preliminary design review; 
CDR = critical design review; 
SIR = system integration review. 

Source: NASA data and GAO analysis. 

[End of figure] 

Project formulation consists of Phases A and B, during which time the 
projects develop and define requirements and the cost/schedule basis 
and design for implementation, including developing an acquisition 
strategy. During the end of the formulation phase, leading up to the 
preliminary design review (PDR),[Footnote 9] the project team 
completes its preliminary design and technology development. NASA 
Interim Directive 7120-97 for NASA Procedural Requirements 7120.5D, 
NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Requirements, 
specifies that during formulation, the project must complete a 
formulation agreement to establish the technical and acquisition work 
that must be conducted during this phase and define the schedule and 
funding requirements for that work. The formulation agreement has to 
describe activities, risk mitigation plans, and key tests to ensure 
that technologies will work as intended in a relevant environment, 
such as test chambers that simulate the conditions of space, by PDR, 
and the project is required to prepare, and continuously update, a 
technology readiness assessment. The project must also develop and 
document an agency baseline commitment[Footnote 10] that includes the 
life-cycle cost estimate and other parameters. The formulation phase 
culminates in a review at key decision point C, known as project 
confirmation, where cost and schedule baselines are confirmed. Project 
progress can subsequently be measured against these baselines. 

After a project is confirmed, it begins implementation, consisting of 
phases C, D, E, and F. Senior NASA officials must approve the project 
before it can proceed from one phase of implementation to another. A 
second design review, the critical design review (CDR),[Footnote 11] 
is held during the latter half of phase C in order to determine if the 
design is stable enough to support proceeding with the final design 
and fabrication. After CDR and just prior to beginning phase D, the 
project completes a system integration review (SIR)[Footnote 12] to 
evaluate the readiness of the project and associated supporting 
infrastructure to begin system assembly, integration, and test. In 
phase D, the project performs system assembly, integration, test, and 
launch activities. Phases E and F consist of operations and 
sustainment and project closeout. 

NASA Projects Reviewed in GAO's Annual Assessment: 

NASA's mission is to drive advances in science, technology, and 
exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic 
vitality, and stewardship of the Earth. NASA establishes many programs 
and projects that rely on complex instruments and spacecraft in order 
to accomplish its mission. NASA's portfolio of major projects ranges 
from robotic probes designed to explore the Martian surface, to 
satellites equipped with advanced sensors to study the earth, to 
telescopes intended to explore the universe, and spacecraft to 
transport humans and cargo beyond low-Earth orbit. In many cases, 
NASA's projects are expected to incorporate new and sophisticated 
technologies that must operate in harsh, distant environments. This 
year, we assessed 21 major projects--6 projects in formulation and 15 
projects in implementation. Five of the 15 projects in implementation 
successfully launched during 2011. The year after a project launches, 
we no longer include a 2-page summary in our annual report. However, 
we do maintain and continually assess historical cost, schedule, and 
performance information collected from these projects during the 
course of our reviews. When NASA determines that a project will have a 
life-cycle cost estimate of more than $250 million, we include that 
project in the next review. See table 1 for a list of the projects we 
reviewed in this year's assessment, and appendix III for a list of 
projects that we have reviewed from 2009 to 2012. 

Table 1: 21 Selected Major NASA Projects Reviewed in GAO's 2012 Annual 
Assessment: 

Projects in formulation: 

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (EMTGO)[A]; 
Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2); 
Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV); 
Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP); 
Solar Probe Plus (SPP); 
Space Launch System (SLS). 

Projects in implementation: 
Aquarius*; 
Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission; 
Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL)*; 
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST); 
Juno*; 
Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM); 
Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE); 
Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS); 
Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN); 
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)*; 
NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP)*[B]; 
Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2); 
Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP); 
Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA); 
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) Replenishment K and L[C]; 

Source: GAO analysis of NASA data. 

* NASA projects that launched in 2011. 

[A] In February 2012, NASA proposed canceling the EMTGO project as 
part of its fiscal year 2013 budget request. 

[B] In January 2012, NASA announced that NPP had been renamed to Suomi 
National Polar-orbiting Partnership. 

[C] TDRS Replenishment includes TDRS-K and TDRS-L. These satellites 
will launch separately, but are counted as only one mission. 

[End of table] 

The portfolio of projects we reviewed includes a wide range of life-
cycle costs. Life-cycle costs for projects in implementation range 
from $262.9 million for LADEE[Footnote 13] to $8.8 billion for JWST. 
Life-cycle costs of projects in formulation have yet to be finalized, 
but current estimates range from $686 to $776 million for ICESat-2 to 
$18 billion through 2017 for SLS and Orion MPCV. Figure 2 depicts the 
launch date and life-cycle costs for projects we reviewed that are in 
the implementation phase. 

Figure 2: Launch Date and Life-Cycle Cost for 15 Major NASA Projects 
in Implementation: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Aquarius: 
Project launched: June 2011; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: under $0.5 billion. 

Juno: 
Project launched: Aug 2011; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: between $1.0-1.5 billion. 

GRAIL: 
Project launched: Sept 2011; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.5 billion. 

NPP: 
Project launched: Oct 2011; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.8 billion. 

MSL: 
Project launched: Nov 2011; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $2.5 billion. 

RBSP: 
Project launch readiness date: Sept 2012; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.7 billion. 

TDRS-K:
Project launch readiness date: Dec 2012; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.4 billion. 

OCO-2: 
Project launch readiness date: Feb 2013; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.4 billion. 

LDCM: 
Project launch readiness date: June 2013; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.9 billion. 

LADEE: 
Project launch readiness date: Nov 2013; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.3 billion. 

MAVEN: 
Project launch readiness date: Nov 2013; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.7 billion. 

TDRS-L: 
Project launch readiness date: Dec 2013; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.4 billion. 

GPM: 
Project launch readiness date: June 2014; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $0.9 billion. 
  
SOFIA: 
Project launch readiness date: Dec 2014; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $3.0 billion. 

MMS: 
Project launch readiness date: Mar 2015; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $1.1 billion. 

JWST: 
Project launch readiness date: Oct 2018; 
2012 project life-cycle costs: $8.7 billion. 

Source: GAO analysis of NASA data. 

Note: TDRS-K and TDRS-L are planned to launch separately, but are 
counted as only one mission. NASA's total life-cycle cost for TDRS-K 
and TDRS-L is $425.5 million. Because launch is not a milestone that 
is applicable to SOFIA, we listed the date when the project is 
scheduled to achieve full operating capability. In January 2012, NASA 
reported that OCO-2's cost and schedule growth were under review 
because of a possible change in its launch vehicle. 

[End of figure] 

NASA's Acquisition Management Remains on GAO's High Risk List: 

GAO has designated NASA's acquisition management as a high risk area 
since 1990 in view of persistent cost growth and schedule slippage in 
the majority of its major projects.[Footnote 14] GAO's work continues 
to find that NASA has difficulty meeting cost, schedule, and 
performance goals for many of its projects. For example, over the past 
3 years GAO has reviewed 13 projects with baselines established prior 
to 2009 that experienced an average development cost growth of almost 
55 percent, with a total increase in development costs of almost $2.5 
billion from their baselines established at confirmation. Several 
factors account for this cost and schedule growth, including poor cost 
estimating and underestimating risks associated with the development 
of its major systems. In 2007, NASA developed a corrective action plan 
to improve how it manages its acquisitions. The plan identifies 
specific actions to strengthen project management, increase accuracy 
in cost estimating, facilitate monitoring of contractor cost 
performance, and improve business processes and financial management; 
the plan also establishes points of accountability and metrics to 
assess progress. NASA has made some progress in the management and 
oversight of its major projects, which we have reported on in prior 
annual assessments and in our high risk report. For example, in 2005 
we reported that NASA's acquisition policies did not conform to best 
practices for product development because they lacked major decision 
reviews at several key points in the project life cycle, which would 
allow decision-makers to make informed decisions about whether a 
project should be authorized to proceed in the development life cycle. 
[Footnote 15] Based, in part, on our recommendations, NASA issued a 
revised policy that instituted several key decision points in the 
development life cycle for space flight programs and projects. 

Furthermore, in 2011 we recommended that (1) NASA provide more 
transparency into project costs in the early phases of development so 
that Congress has sufficient information to conduct oversight and 
ensure earlier accountability, and (2) NASA develop a common set of 
measurable and proven criteria to assess design stability and amend 
its systems engineering policy accordingly.[Footnote 16] NASA agreed 
with the need to provide clarity on life-cycle cost range estimates 
and began providing increased information for projects in early 
formulation in its fiscal year 2013 budget submission. In addition, 
NASA is committed to enhancing its ability to monitor and assess the 
stability of programs and projects and is working to include 
additional criteria in its policy documents. We will continue to work 
with NASA as it makes progress toward more effectively assessing 
projects at key junctures in the project life cycle. 

Observations on NASA's Portfolio of Major Projects: 

JWST Experienced Significant Cost and Schedule Growth, but Most 
Projects in Portfolio Are Currently Relatively Stable: 

Of the 15 projects in implementation,[Footnote 17] the James Webb 
Space Telescope (JWST) has reported the most significant cost and 
schedule changes since last year. The development cost and schedule 
growth reported for JWST is not typical of the cost and schedule 
changes NASA has reported for its other major projects this year. 
Specifically, the JWST project has had over $3.6 billion--or 140 
percent--in development cost growth and a schedule delay of over 4 
years. To put the JWST project's development cost growth into 
perspective, its cost increase is over $443 million greater than the 
total life-cycle cost of the seven smallest major projects included in 
our review. See figure 3 below. 

Figure 3: JWST's Cumulative Development Cost Growth Compared to the 
Total Life-Cycle Cost Estimates for Seven Selected Major NASA Projects: 

[Refer to PDF for image: stacked vertical bar graph] 

RBSP: $686.0 million; 
MAVEN: $671.2 million; 
GRAIL: $487.2 million; 
TDRS: $434.1 million; 
OCO-2: $349.9 million; 
Aquarius: $282.5 million; 
LADEE: $262.9 million; 

JWST Development Increase: $3.62 billion. 

Source: GAO analysis of NASA data.   

[End of figure] 

The impact of JWST's increases on the average development cost and 
schedule growth from project baselines is significant. For example, 
the 14 projects currently in implementation, excluding JWST, had an 
average development cost growth of $79 million--or 14.6 percent--and 
schedule growth of 8 months from their baselines. With JWST included, 
these numbers increase dramatically to almost 47 percent and 11 months 
respectively. 

For most projects in implementation, development costs remained 
relatively stable or declined and launch dates did not slip in the 
past year. The LDCM, MMS, NPP, and TDRS Replenishment projects 
reported decreases in their development costs which resulted in a 
decline in each project's life-cycle cost. For example, NPP 
development costs declined because the project no longer needed $35 
million in contingency funding to reach a February 2012 launch date 
since the project successfully launched in October 2011. Although 
development costs for the Aquarius, GRAIL, Juno, and RBSP projects 
declined, this decrease was fully or partially offset by increases to 
the projects' operations costs. The MSL project also transferred some 
funding from development to operations, and NASA reported a further 
increase in its life-cycle cost by providing an additional $59 million 
to operations to perform development activities during its cruise to 
Mars. See table 2 below for more details on projects' development cost 
and schedule growth reported this year and against their baselines. 

Table 2: Development Cost and Schedule Growth of Selected Major NASA 
Projects Currently in the Implementation Phase: 

Project: Aquarius; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $33.2 million; 
Percentage cost growth: 17.2% [shaded]; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$1.4 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 23 [shaded]; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: GPM[A]; 
Cumulative development cost growth: -$35.9 million; 
Percentage cost growth: -6.5%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: $4.5 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 11 [shaded]; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 11. 

Project: GRAIL[B]; 
Cumulative development cost growth: -$28.7 million; 
Percentage cost growth: -6.7%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$28.7 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 0; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: Juno[C]; 
Cumulative development cost growth: -$31.8 million; 
Percentage cost growth: -4.3%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$31.8 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 0; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: LADEE; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $7.6 million; 
Percentage cost growth: 4.5%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: $7.6 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 0; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: LDCM[D]; 
Cumulative development cost growth: -$6.2 million; 
Percentage cost growth: -1.1%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$10.4 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 0; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: MAVEN; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $0.0; 
Percentage cost growth: 0.0%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: $0.0; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 0; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: MMS; 
Cumulative development cost growth: -$0.1 million; 
Percentage cost growth: 0.0%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$0.1 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 0; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: MSL[E]; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $812.8 million; 
Percentage cost growth: 83.9% [shaded]; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$20.6 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 26 [shaded]; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: NPP; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $174.9 million; 
Percentage cost growth: 29.5% [shaded]; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$12.2 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 42 [shaded]; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: OCO-2[F]; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $0.0; 
Percentage cost growth: 0.0%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: $0.0; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 0; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: RBSP[C]; 
Cumulative development cost growth: -$3.0 million; 
Percentage cost growth: -0.6%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$3.1 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 4; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 4. 

Project: SOFIA; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $208.9 million; 
Percentage cost growth: 22.7% [shaded]; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: $0.0; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 12 [shaded]; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: TDRS Replenishment[G]; 
Cumulative development cost growth: -$25.8 million; 
Percentage cost growth: -12.3%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$8.6 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 0; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 0. 

Project: Portfolio Excluding JWST: 

Average; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $79.0 million; 
Percentage cost growth: 14.6%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: -$7.5 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 8; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 1. 

Project: Portfolio Including JWST. 

Project: JWST; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $3.62 billion; 
Percentage cost growth: 140.1% [shaded]; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: $3.49 billion; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 52 [shaded]; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 52. 

Project: Average; 
Cumulative development cost growth: $314.8 million; 
Percentage cost growth: 46.5%; 
Development cost growth reported in past year: $225.5 million; 
Cumulative launch delay (months): 11; 
Launch delay reported in past year (months): 4. 

Source: GAO analysis of NASA data. 

Note: Shading indicates projects that exceeded the cost and/or 
schedule thresholds that trigger reporting to Congress under the law. 

[A] GPM's development cost decreased because one instrument was 
removed from the project. 

[B] The decline in GRAIL's development costs was partially offset by 
an increase in the project's operations costs. 

[C] The life-cycle cost for the Juno and RBSP projects have not 
changed. The reduction in development costs was offset by an increase 
in operations costs. 

[D] NASA reported LDCM's development costs were reduced because of 
progress in delivering an instrument and integrating it with the 
spacecraft and in completing environmental testing on another 
instrument. 

[E] MSL established a new baseline in fiscal year 2010 after being 
reauthorized by Congress. MSL's development cost declined due to a 
reduction in the cost of its Atlas V launch vehicle and an estimated 
transfer in funding from development to operations. 

[F] OCO-2's cost and schedule growth reported above reflect data as of 
October 2011. In January 2012, NASA reported that the project's cost 
and schedule were under review because of a possible change in its 
launch vehicle. 

[G] NASA's development cost for TDRS Replenishment declined for 
several reasons, including greater than expected contributions from 
one of NASA's partners and the inadvertent inclusion of costs for 
another TDRS satellite. 

[End of table] 

Six of the 15 projects currently in implementation experienced 
significant development cost and/or schedule growth from their 
baselines[Footnote 18]. Four of the 6 projects--NPP, SOFIA, Aquarius, 
and MSL--were highlighted in last year's report and account for 26 
percent of the development cost growth and about 60 percent of the 
schedule growth in the portfolio. Two projects--JWST and GPM--
experienced significant development cost and/or schedule growth from 
their baselines in the last year. The JWST project exceeded its 
development cost and schedule baselines by 140 percent and 52 months, 
respectively. These increases represent about 76 percent of the 
portfolio's development cost growth and approximately 30 percent of 
its schedule growth. To the project's credit, NASA officials recently 
reported that all schedule milestones planned for 2011 had been 
accomplished. According to the project manager, GPM's launch has been 
delayed 11 months due to late deliveries of two primary instruments 
and spacecraft components by its contractors and the Japan Aerospace 
Exploration Agency (JAXA), but its development cost has actually 
declined because one instrument that was supposed to fly on a second 
spacecraft was removed from the project. 

The remaining nine projects entered implementation and established 
baselines in fiscal year 2009 or later and have not reported 
significant cost and schedule growth. For example, GRAIL and Juno 
successfully launched in 2011 and both projects were completed on time 
and within their allotted budget. Several of these projects, however, 
are entering, or have recently entered, the test and integration phase 
where cost and schedule growth is typically realized. Notably, some of 
the projects that are entering or have recently entered the test and 
integration phase have experienced similar challenges as some of the 
older projects that have reported cost and/or schedule growth, such as 
issues with maturing technology and/or not meeting design criteria. 
Although many of these projects have reported little or no cost growth 
from their baselines, several have experienced an increase in the 
value of their major contracts.[Footnote 19] We plan to study this 
issue more going forward to determine why these values are changing 
and the extent to which changes in contract value could impact cost 
and schedule baselines. 

Largest Space Missions Pose Portfolio Management Challenges to NASA: 

Although cost and schedule growth can occur on any NASA project, cost 
and schedule increases within NASA's most technologically advanced and 
costly projects can have cascading effects on the rest of its 
portfolio, presenting challenges to NASA management. For example, 
according to NASA officials, JWST's significant cost growth may lead 
to the postponement and possible cancellation of other science 
projects; and MSL's substantial cost overruns led NASA to take funding 
from other projects. JWST and MSL are two of NASA's largest projects 
and account for approximately 51 percent, or $11.4 billion, of the 
total life-cycle costs for projects in implementation during our 
review. In addition, 2 of the 6 programs in formulation--SLS and Orion 
MPCV--are complex human spaceflight programs and together they are 
currently estimated to cost approximately $3 billion a year through 
2017, representing about 17 percent of NASA's fiscal year 2012 budget. 
These programs have just recently transitioned from the Constellation 
program and, according to NASA officials, will not have measurable 
baselines established until February 2013. 

In 2011, NASA and the Aerospace Corporation jointly studied typical 
agency missions. The study identified weaknesses in NASA's management 
of its projects and made several recommendations. For example, the 
study found that some projects had budget profiles that were 
unrealistic for the required effort. The study recommended that a 
mission should not be initiated until an adequate funding profile is 
in place. Doing so is a key part of establishing a sound business case 
for a project, and best practices show matching resources to 
requirements increases the likelihood of program success. The study 
also found that in the past, some projects were confirmed with 
immature technology and design baselines and that committing to such 
baselines can lead to breaches and subsequent baseline changes. The 
study recommended that missions have a greater demonstrated readiness, 
which may lead to longer formulation periods with adequate funding for 
design and technology development. Although NASA's largest and most 
costly missions are going to be covered in a separate NASA study, the 
study concluded that these two recommendations extend to larger 
missions as well. These recommendations align with those that we have 
made in the past and are especially important for NASA's most 
technologically advanced and costly projects where problems can have 
cascading effects on the portfolio. 

Observations from Our Assessment of Knowledge Attained by Key 
Junctures in the Acquisition Process: 

Many of NASA's projects are one-time articles, meaning that there is 
little opportunity to apply knowledge gained to the production of a 
second, third, or future increments of spacecraft. While space 
development programs are complex and difficult by nature and most are 
one-time efforts, NASA is still responsible for achieving what it 
promises when requesting and receiving funds. We have previously 
reported that NASA would benefit from a more disciplined, knowledge-
based approach to its acquisitions. For the projects reviewed this 
year, we continue to identify projects that have not met best practice 
standards for technology maturity and design stability and have 
experienced challenges in development. These challenges were assessed 
based on knowledge that, according to acquisition best practices, 
should be attained at key junctures in the project's life cycle to 
lessen the risks to the project. 

Technology Challenges: 

[Side bar: Projects that are experiencing or have experienced 
technology challenges: 
* GPM; 
* GRAIL; 
* Juno; 
* JWST; 
* LADEE; 
* LDCM; 
* MMS; 
* MSL; 
* NPP; 
* SMAP; 
* SOFIA; 
* TDRS Replenishment. 
End of side bar] 

Nearly two thirds of the projects in our current review do not meet 
best practice standards for technology maturity, but NASA has improved 
in this area in recent years. Our best practices work has shown that a 
technology readiness level (TRL) of 6--demonstrating a technology as a 
fully integrated prototype in a relevant environment--is the level of 
technology maturity that can minimize risks for space systems entering 
product development.[Footnote 20] For NASA, a project enters product 
development--or implementation--following the project's preliminary 
design review and confirmation review. NASA's systems engineering 
policy states that by the preliminary design review a TRL of 6 is 
desirable prior to integrating a new technology in a project.[Footnote 
21] Demonstrating that technologies will work as intended in a 
relevant environment is a fundamental element of a sound business 
case, and its absence, we have found, is a marker for subsequent 
technical problems that must be addressed at the same time the system 
is being designed, fabricated, or tested. 

Specifically, 16 of the 21 projects in our review completed their 
preliminary design reviews. Of these 16 projects, 12 experienced 
technology challenges, including 10 projects that reported moving 
forward with immature technologies. See figure 4 for an analysis of 
the projects that we reviewed in the past 3 years that held their 
preliminary design review and the percentage of those projects that 
moved into implementation with immature technologies. 

Figure 4: Percentage of Selected Major NASA Projects Meeting and Not 
Meeting Technology Maturity Criteria at Preliminary Design Review: 

[Refer to PDF for image: stacked vertical bar graph] 

Year: 2010; 
Projects not meeting technology maturity criteria: 71%; 
Projects meeting technology maturity criteria: 29%. 

Year: 2011; 
Projects not meeting technology maturity criteria: 62.5%; 
Projects meeting technology maturity criteria: 37.5%. 

Year: 2012; 
Projects not meeting technology maturity criteria: 62.5%; 
Projects meeting technology maturity criteria: 37.5%. 

Note: The number of projects reviewed in each year has varied. See 
Appendix III. Additionally, totals may not add to 100 percent due to 
rounding. 

[End of figure] 

In our 2010 assessment of major NASA projects, 29 percent of the 
projects in our review had matured their technologies by the 
preliminary design review, and this figure rose to 38 percent last 
year. In this year's review, we found that the percent of projects 
meeting this criteria remained the same as last year.[Footnote 22] 

Our work has also shown that the use of heritage technology--proven 
components that are being modified to meet new requirements--can also 
increase the risk of problems when the items are not sufficiently 
matured to meet form, fit, and function standards of the project that 
will be using the component by the preliminary design review. Projects 
will modify the form, fit, and function of a heritage technology to 
adapt it to the new environment. For example, the size or weight of 
the component may change or the technology may function differently 
than its use on a previous mission. NASA frequently employs heritage 
technologies that have to be modified from their original form, fit, 
and function. NASA's Systems Engineering Handbook states that a 
frequently overlooked area is modification of heritage systems that 
are incorporated into different architectures, and operating in 
environments different from those in which they were designed to 
operate. Further, the Handbook states that project management tends to 
overestimate the maturity and applicability of heritage technology to 
a new project. Our work has shown, and NASA's own guidance concurs, 
that this is an area that is frequently underestimated when developing 
project cost estimates. Although NASA distinguishes critical 
technologies from heritage technologies, our work has shown critical 
technologies to be those that are required for the project to 
successfully meet customer requirements, regardless of whether or not 
the technologies are based on existing or heritage technology. 
Therefore, whether technologies are labeled as "critical" or 
"heritage," if they are important to the development of the spacecraft 
or instrument--enabling it to move forward in the development process--
they should be matured by the preliminary design review. 

Finally, there has been a decline in the amount of critical technology 
development reported for major NASA projects in our review. 
Specifically, we found that the average number of reported critical 
technologies per project declined from 4.7 in 2009 to 2.6 in 2012. See 
figure 5. 

Figure 5: Average Number of Critical Technologies Reported for 
Selected Major NASA Projects Reviewed from 2009 to 2012: 

[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph] 

Year: 2009; 
Number of technologies: 4.7. 

Year: 2010; 
Number of technologies: 3.8. 

Year: 2011; 
Number of technologies: 2.6. 

Year: 2012; 
Number of technologies: 2.6. 

Source: GAO analysis of NASA data. 

Note: Figures are based on the sum of reported critical technologies 
each year by projects in our review that had reached the preliminary 
design review. Each sum is then divided by the number of projects. 

[End of figure] 

Furthermore, we found the percentage of projects reporting one or no 
critical technologies at the preliminary design review has increased 
each year from 47 percent in 2009 to 65 percent in 2012. In last 
year's assessment, senior NASA officials stated that it appeared that 
the projects were not accurately identifying to us the number of 
critical technologies they planned to develop. They said that it 
appeared that projects had only identified critical technologies at 
the instrument--or system--level, and not the subsystem level. The 
data that NASA provided this year is comparable to what was submitted 
last year. We will continue to work with NASA to ensure that projects 
are accurately identifying their critical technologies to assist NASA 
decision makers in assessing the readiness of projects to move forward 
in their development life cycles. 

Design Challenges: 

[Side bar: Projects that are experiencing or have experienced design 
challenges: 
* Aquarius; 
* EMTGO; 
* GPM; 
* JWST; 
* Juno; 
* LADEE; 
* MAVEN; 
* MMS; 
* MSL; 
* NPP; 
* OCO-2; 
* Orion-MPCV; 
* RBSP; 
* SOFIA; 
* SLS. 

Thirteen[Footnote 23] of the 14 projects in this year's review that 
had held a critical design review did not meet the best practices 
metric of having 90 percent engineering drawings in a releasable 
state.[Footnote 24] The 14 projects averaged having only 62 percent of 
their engineering drawings releasable at their critical design 
reviews, the same percentage as we reported last year. See figure 6. 

Figure 6: Percentage of Engineering Drawings Releasable at CDR for 
Selected Major NASA Projects: 

[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph] 

Best practices criteria: 90% releasable. 

Project that completed CDR: Aquarius; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 16%. 

Project that completed CDR: GPM; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 47%. 

Project that completed CDR: GRAIL; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 82%. 

Project that completed CDR: Juno; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 38%. 

Project that completed CDR: JWST; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 84%. 

Project that completed CDR: LADEE; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 72%. 

Project that completed CDR: LDCM; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 78%. 

Project that completed CDR: MAVEN; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 68%. 

Project that completed CDR: MMS; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 74%. 

Project that completed CDR: MSL; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 0. 

Project that completed CDR: NPP; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 65%. 

Project that completed CDR: OCO-2; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 95%. 

Project that completed CDR: RBSP; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 68%. 

Project that completed CDR: TDRS; 
Engineering Drawings Reusable at CDR: 81%. 

Source: GAO analysis of NASA data. 

[End of figure] 

The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) Replenishment project had 
met this criteria as of last year's review, but has had an increase in 
design drawings that dropped the project below the design stability 
criteria. The one project that did meet the criteria, the Orbiting 
Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2), is a rebuild of a prior design that 
launched and therefore a majority of its drawings were releasable. The 
performance of this year's portfolio against our design stability 
criteria continues a trend from prior assessments as nearly all 
projects we have reviewed since 2009 have failed to meet the criteria. 

Our work that identified product development best practices shows that 
at least 90 percent of engineering drawings should be releasable by 
the critical design review. Guidance in NASA's Systems Engineering 
Handbook mirrors this metric. Previous discussions with project 
officials indicated the metric has been used inconsistently to gauge 
design stability. For example, Goddard Space Flight Center requires 
greater than 80 percent drawings released at the critical design 
review, yet in previous years several project officials reported that 
the "rule of thumb" for NASA projects is between 70 and 90 percent. As 
shown in figure 6 above, 7 of the 14 projects reported releasable 
engineering drawings of less than 70 percent, lower than the "rule of 
thumb" used by several project managers. 

Because the critical design review is the time in a project's life 
cycle when the integrity of the project design and its ability to meet 
mission requirements is assessed, it is important that a project's 
design is stable enough to warrant continuing with the final design 
and fabrication phase. A stable design allows projects to "freeze" the 
design and minimize changes prior to beginning the fabrication of 
hardware, after which time re-engineering and re-work efforts due to 
design changes can be costly to the project in terms of time and 
funding. Some of the projects we reviewed in the past pointed to other 
activities that occurred prior to the critical design review as 
evidence of design stability. In addition to releasable engineering 
drawings, NASA often relies on subject matter experts in the design 
review process and other methods to assess design stability. Some 
projects also reported using engineering models and engineering test 
units to assess design stability, which in at least one case appears 
to be a successful approach. For example, despite having only 39 
percent of its engineering drawings releasable which would indicate an 
unstable design, Juno project officials said that they were able to 
budget for and use engineering models for all instruments at critical 
design review. Officials stated that the use of engineering models 
helps decrease risk of flight unit development, and projects that did 
not use engineering models indicated that they might have caught 
problems earlier had they used them. However, project officials have 
also stated that engineering models are expensive to employ and not 
all projects have the available funds necessary to utilize them. 

An indicator of an unstable design is the degree to which projects' 
design drawings increase post-critical design review. Projects that 
held their critical design review prior to fiscal year 2009 have 
reported having a lower percentage of releasable drawings at that 
review and a larger increase in engineering drawings post-critical 
design review than projects that have held their critical design 
review since that time. Over the past 4 years, we have reviewed 20 
projects that have held their critical design review. As shown in 
figure 7 below, the 9 projects that held their critical design review 
prior to fiscal year 2009 have had, on average, a 184 percent increase 
in engineering drawings after the critical design review after having, 
on average, only 41 percent of drawings releasable at that review. The 
remaining 11 projects that held their critical design review in fiscal 
year 2009 or later have had, on average, only a 9 percent increase in 
engineering drawings and 72 percent of drawings releasable at that 
review. Several of the 11 projects have recently held their critical 
design review, limiting the amount of time over which growth in 
expected drawings might take place. Nonetheless, these projects 
represent a positive trend for NASA as they have achieved a higher 
level of design stability according to best practices and the agency's 
systems engineering policy, and have generally incurred less 
development cost growth than prior projects. 

Figure 7: Comparison of Design Drawings Increase for 20 Major NASA 
Projects That Have Held CDR prior to and since Fiscal Year 2009: 

[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph] 

Projects with CDR prior to FY 2009: 
Average drawings released at CDR: 41%; 
Average increase in estimated drawings after CDR: 184%. 

Projects with CDR in FY 2009 or later: 
Average drawings released at CDR: 72%; 
Average increase in estimated drawings after CDR: 9%. 

Source: GAO analysis of NASA data. 

[End of figure] 

We have previously reported that NASA's acquisition policy does not 
specify a metric to measure a project's design stability at the 
critical design review, and last year, we recommended that NASA 
develop a common set of measurable and proven criteria to assess 
design stability and to amend NASA's systems engineering policy to 
that effect.[Footnote 25] In response, NASA provided three technical 
indicators that were focused on design maturity. The three technical 
indicators were (1) the percentage of actual mass margin versus 
planned mass margin, (2) the percentage of actual power margin versus 
planned power margin, and (3) the percentage of overdue project 
requests for action.[Footnote 26] When asked to provide data to 
support the use of these metrics, NASA's Chief Engineer told us that 
such data were not available and that the senior engineers consulted 
in their development agreed that the metrics are good indicators of 
design maturity. According to officials in NASA's Office of the Chief 
Engineer, NASA began a pilot this year with projects that went through 
their critical design review to determine the effectiveness of these 
indicators. NASA has not provided GAO any information on the results 
of this pilot. According to officials, NASA's program management and 
systems engineering policies are being updated to require projects to 
track these metrics. In addition, NASA also provided us information on 
additional technical indicators that can be used by projects. While 
they do not plan to require the use of these indicators, officials 
indicated that they plan on updating the agency's program management 
and systems engineering handbooks to encourage projects to use them to 
track design maturity. GAO expects to continue its dialogue with NASA 
regarding design metrics. 

Observations on Other Challenges That Can Affect Project Outcomes: 

In addition to collecting and analyzing data on the attainment of 
knowledge at key junctures, we identified five additional areas that 
can present challenges to obtaining positive project outcomes: launch 
vehicles, contractor management, parts, development partners, and 
funding. 

Launch Vehicle Challenges: 

[Side bar: Projects that are experiencing or have experienced launch 
challenges: 
* GRAIL; 
* ICESat-2; 
* LADEE; 
* MAVEN; 
* NPP; 
* OCO-2; 
* SMAP; 
* SPP; 
* TDRS Replenishment. 
End of side bar] 

Nine of the 21 projects we reviewed reported challenges with launch 
vehicles, including the increasing cost and availability of launch 
vehicles.[Footnote 27] Because the launch vehicle is integral to a 
project's design, the decision on which launch vehicle will be used 
should be made before preliminary design review. According to NASA 
officials, a delay or change in this decision can delay design or lead 
to costly re-design. For the last decade, NASA has relied principally 
on the Delta II medium class launch vehicle, which is built and sold 
by United Launch Alliance, to deliver science missions. The United 
States Air Force concluded its use of the Delta II launch vehicle in 
August 2009. The decreased demand for medium class launch vehicles, 
according to NASA, was insufficient to sustain the Delta II's 
production at prices traditionally paid; as a result, this vehicle is 
no longer a viable long-term option for its missions.[Footnote 28] New 
medium class commercial launch vehicles are in development, but have 
not yet been certified--a process aimed at reducing risk that takes 
approximately 3 years. NASA could buy other mature launch vehicles for 
its missions, such as the Atlas V, but these vehicles would be 
considerably more expensive and provide excess capability than launch 
vehicles in the medium class. Another commercial launch vehicle, 
Taurus XL, has failed on its two most recent flights--the OCO and 
Glory spacecraft did not reach orbit--and will have to be recertified. 
Because of these challenges, some projects are facing uncertainties 
regarding which launch vehicle will be selected for the mission: 

* The OCO-2 mission was scheduled to launch on the Taurus XL in 
February 2013. NASA, however, suspended OCO-2's Taurus XL task order 
pending a review of the launch vehicle's most recent failure. NASA 
officials have indicated that the OCO-2 project may use an alternate 
launch vehicle, but a decision has not yet been made. NASA officials 
have reported previously that changing the planned launch vehicle of a 
science mission after its preliminary design review is a fundamental 
change to the mission design and would lead to significant cost growth 
and schedule delays. Therefore, any change in the OCO-2 project's 
launch vehicle could have a significant impact on its cost and 
schedule. In January 2012, NASA officials stated that OCO-2's cost and 
schedule estimates were being reviewed pending a resolution of the 
launch vehicle issue. 

* NASA officials told us they decided to use a Minotaur launch vehicle 
for at least one mission--LADEE--because of cost savings afforded by 
this vehicle and the lack of reliable and certified launch vehicles 
with the necessary performance. Minotaur vehicles are built from re-
purposed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and use of these vehicles 
as a space transportation vehicle is subject to certain restrictions 
under federal law.[Footnote 29] According to the law, NASA must 
certify to Congress that the Minotaur meets NASA's mission 
requirements, that the agency has the approval of the Secretary of 
Defense, that the use is consistent with international obligations of 
the United States, and that doing so would provide cost-savings to the 
government--all of which, NASA officials stated, was done for the 
LADEE mission. Project officials told us they are also considering 
using a Minotaur for the OCO-2 and SMAP missions, but NASA has not yet 
determined if these projects meet the requirements of the law for 
using the Minotaur. Because of the lack of available alternative 
medium-class launch vehicles and the restrictions in using the 
Minotaur, a final decision on the launch vehicle for the SMAP mission 
has not been made and the project's preliminary design review, 
confirmation, and critical design review were delayed. According to 
project officials, they are currently basing the design of the project 
on using the Minotaur vehicle, but the project is at risk of costly 
redesigns if the vehicle ultimately selected is not the Minotaur. The 
project, however, is taking steps to minimize this risk in its design 
process. 

* Project officials told us the launch vehicle for ICESat-2 remains 
undefined because of limited project funding and the high cost of 
suitable launch vehicles. The ICESat-2 mission is currently attempting 
to reach agreement with the Air Force to co-manifest with an Air Force 
spacecraft in order to reduce launch vehicle costs and stay within its 
life-cycle cost range estimate. Co-manifesting--or flying two or more 
spacecraft on a single launch vehicle--provides potential cost savings 
to the agencies involved. According to NASA officials, co-manifesting 
also comes with increased risk because it is difficult to coordinate 
the development and launch schedules, the orbit, and the destination 
of multiple missions. For example, a schedule delay on one project or 
mass increase on one spacecraft could adversely affect all missions 
involved. For the ICESat-2 mission, NASA is concerned that budget 
constraints may lead to a delay in the Air Force mission. If an 
agreement cannot be reached between the Air Force and NASA for co-
manifesting the missions, project officials said they will work with 
NASA Launch Services to procure a launch vehicle to independently 
launch ICESat-2, which they added would be significantly more costly. 

Contractor Management Challenges: 

[Side bar: Projects that are experiencing or have experienced 
contractor management challenges: 
* GPM; 
* GRAIL; 
* JWST; 
* MMS; 
* RBSP; 
* TDRS Replenishment. 
End of side bar] 

Six of the 15 projects in implementation reported experiencing 
contractor challenges, including not completing work on time and 
inadequate communication that led to cost overruns and, in some cases, 
the need for increased oversight of contractors. Contractor 
performance is critical for the success of many NASA missions as NASA 
obligates about 85 percent of its annual budget on contracts. 

The JWST project has encountered contractor management challenges with 
its prime contractor Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, a major sub-
contractor for the project's primary imaging instrument. In 2010, an 
independent review panel attributed some of the project's cost growth 
and schedule delays to program management issues. Specifically, the 
panel cited inadequate communication between NASA and its contractors 
and the absence of a project representative at the prime contractor 
facility. In response to the panel's report, NASA officials 
restructured the JWST project and directed it to assume the lead role 
over systems engineering functions and some of the integration and 
testing responsibility from Northrop Grumman, which the company agreed 
was the proper action. In addition, the project and its prime 
contractor are planning to have at least one senior JWST project 
representative reside at Northrop Grumman. A NASA official added that 
the representative will be staffed at the Northrop Grumman facility by 
the end of fiscal year 2012 and will serve as the day-to-day liaison 
with the contractor, providing quick responses to contractor questions 
and clarifying the project's directions. JWST officials also told us 
that the project encountered between $60 million and $200 million in 
cost overruns when Lockheed Martin was unable to deliver one of the 
scientific instruments on time. As a result, officials said they have 
staffed two project representatives at Lockheed Martin whose 
responsibilities include providing technical guidance on contractor 
questions and coordinating discussions between project and contractor 
staff to facilitate timely resolution of technical issues. 

The MMS and GPM projects also reported that contractors did not 
complete work on time. For example, the MMS project's prime 
contractor, the Southwest Research Institute, was having difficulty 
delivering one of the scientific instruments on time, and the project 
reported that recent detailed cost estimates indicate that the cost to 
complete its development will exceed the overall available budget by 
$15.9 million. In another example, Northrop Grumman did not have the 
capacity to produce sufficient quantities of flight power system 
electronic boards and command and data handling units, which affected 
the integration and test schedule for the GPM project. In response, 
the project had to use a second manufacturer to help mitigate this 
production issue. 

MAVEN project officials reported that they proactively took steps 
early in development to mitigate potential contractor challenges. For 
example, the project received NASA approval to have a number of 
mission quality assurance staff reside at Lockheed Martin, one of the 
project's prime contractors. In addition, after finding deviations in 
a vendor's part used on a component that controls and stabilizes the 
spacecraft, officials said they instituted additional, mandatory 
inspections during manufacturing and assembly of the part. 

Parts Challenges: 
[Side bar: Projects that are experiencing or have experienced parts 
challenges: 
* GPM; 
* GRAIL; 
* Juno; 
* JWST; 
* LCDM; 
* MMS; 
* MSL; 
* NPP; 
* OCO-2; 
* RBSP; 
* Sofia; 
* TDRS Replenishment. 
End of side bar] 

Thirteen of the 15 projects in implementation reported parts, 
materials, and process issues, some of which resulted in cost growth 
and/or schedule delays. The cost impacts generally ranged from tens of 
thousands to several million dollars during a project's development 
phase. One project--NPP--experienced cost increases of over $100 
million due to parts problems with partner-provided instruments. In 
some cases, the problems also led to instruments being delivered late. 
These findings are consistent with our June 2011 report, in which we 
reported that parts quality problems have endangered entire missions 
for space and missile defense acquisitions, especially when those 
problems were discovered late in the development cycle.[Footnote 30] 
According to NASA officials, parts problems are not uncommon for 
projects and NASA's testing process is designed to identify parts 
failures at the component, subsystem, and system level before they 
lead to mission failure. Below are some examples of the parts problems 
encountered by projects in this year's assessment: 

* The RBSP and MMS projects experienced problems with the same part, a 
high-voltage optocoupler. The problem cost the RBSP project about 
$900,000 and required the manufacturer to make revisions to the part's 
design. Issues with the part also contributed to a 2-month delay in 
delivering one of the MMS project's scientific instruments at a cost 
impact of approximately $500,000. 

* The LDCM project experienced a 9-month delay in the delivery of the 
spacecraft's star tracker when a stud broke during assembly that held 
key components. The contractor had developed a new design process that 
was supposed to improve the star tracker's detector, but it failed to 
do so. Consequently, the contractor reverted to its original design 
process. 

* The LDCM and OCO-2 projects encountered problems with black chrome 
coating used to protect optically sensitive instruments. For the LDCM 
project, approximately $3 million and 2 months of project-held 
schedule reserve were used to address this issue. For the OCO-2 
project, the cost impact was below $1 million and resulted in a 
schedule slip of about 2 months. 

In June 2011, we recommended that NASA implement a mechanism for a 
periodic, governmentwide assessment and reporting on parts quality 
problems in major space and missile defense programs, with periodic 
reporting to Congress. The assessment would include the frequency such 
problems are appearing in major programs, changes in frequency from 
previous years, and the effectiveness of corrective measures. NASA 
concurred with our recommendation. 

Development Partner Challenges: 

[Side bar: Projects that are experiencing or have experienced 
development partner challenges: 
* Aquarius; 
* GPM; 
* LDCM; 
* MMS. 
End of side bar] 

Four projects reported challenges with domestic or international 
partners' not meeting project commitments within planned resources. 
These challenges included lack of adequate partner funding, late 
delivery of partner instruments, and technical issues with spacecraft. 
Some of the problems were outside the development partners' control 
while others were more likely caused by the partners themselves. 

Two projects reported budget concerns and setbacks in instrumentation 
development involving their domestic partners. LDCM project officials 
told us that NASA is concerned that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 
may not be able to meet its funding commitments now and during ground 
operations. Project officials said that NASA has had to cover project 
development costs that were supposed to be paid for by USGS because 
USGS did not have an adequate budget to support the work. NASA made a 
corresponding decrease to its expected operations costs in order to 
keep its life-cycle costs stable with the understanding that USGS 
would have a sufficient budget during the operations phase to cover 
this decrease. USGS will manage the ground systems and is responsible 
for funding flight and mission operations, taking control of the 
project after launch. In another example, NPP project officials said 
they are concerned about the longevity of the partner-provided 
instruments on orbit because they were designed and built in 
undisciplined environmental conditions, resulting in numerous design 
and test failures. 

Projects with international partners encountered schedule delays due 
to technical issues and, in one case, a natural disaster. For example, 
Argentina's National Committee of Space Activities was responsible for 
spacecraft development delays that resulted in a 23-month launch delay 
of the Aquarius project. Project officials said that while Argentina's 
National Committee of Space Activities is technically competent, it 
lacks experience in managing spacecraft production projects. In 
addition, Aquarius project officials reported that certain aspects of 
the spacecraft, such as power continuity, threaten Aquarius's 
performance during operations, but they deem this risk as very 
unlikely as NASA subject matter experts participated in the design 
reviews and development activities for the solar array. The 
development partner for the GPM project, JAXA, faced an unexpected 
setback when the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. GPM 
project officials reported that the delivery of the Dual-Precipitation 
Radar slipped by 4 months after the natural disaster struck Japan, 
where the instrument is being constructed. 

Funding Challenges: 

[Side bar: Projects that are experiencing or have experienced funding 
challenges: 
* Aquarius; 
* EMTGO; 
* GPM; 
* ICESat-2; 
* JWST; 
* LDCM; 
* MMS; 
* MPCV; 
* OCO-2; 
* SLS; 
* SMAP; 
* SOFIA. 
End of side bar] 

Although more than half of the projects in our review experienced 
funding challenges, we did not find consistent reasons among the 
projects for these issues. Challenges experienced by a few projects, 
however, significantly affected the project's performance, the 
viability of NASA's broader portfolio, and have the potential to do so 
in the future. We view this challenge as an area that will require 
close attention in the next few years as NASA moves forward with large 
investments in its human spaceflight programs and the full effect of 
the cost increases for the JWST project becomes apparent. 

In October 2011, NASA announced that the JWST project will cost $3.7 
billion more than previously expected and take over 4 years longer to 
develop. The result of the cost increase on other projects in the 
portfolio has yet to be fully addressed by NASA, but the agency has 
indicated that the impacts being assessed would delay some future 
science missions planned for launch after 2015. In addition, NASA 
officials said that other projects, starting with those that have not 
yet been confirmed, may face possible cancellation to help offset 
JWST's cost growth. The impact of the JWST project's cost growth 
appears to be affecting at least one project in the portfolio as the 
Administration has proposed to terminate funding for the EMTGO project--
part of the Mars Exploration Joint Initiative between NASA and the 
European Space Agency (ESA)--and planning for the NASA/ESA Mars 2018 
mission concept in the fiscal year 2013 President's budget request due 
to funding constraints. Prior to this announcement, NASA officials 
stated that the agency delayed EMTGO's scheduled January 2012 
confirmation due to a NASA review of the Mars program, which was 
initiated as a result of the agency's overall funding constraints. 
These constraints include the recent JWST project's cost increases. In 
addition, NASA had originally planned to provide an Atlas V launch 
vehicle for EMTGO. However, NASA officials report that in September 
2011 the agency informed ESA that they should not expect NASA to be 
able to provide the launch vehicle for the 2016 mission due to 
budgetary reasons. 

As NASA confronts JWST's cost growth and its repercussions, it will 
also be initiating two other large-scale investments in human 
spaceflight--the new SLS and the Orion MPCV--which together will 
require approximately $3 billion a year. Recent human space flight 
programs experienced significant cost growth--partly reflective of the 
technical and design risks in developing these systems, but also of 
poor management and oversight practices such as establishing funding 
profiles that fit annual budgets but do not match resources needed in 
the early phases of the development process. Moreover, these two 
programs face highly ambitious schedules that are likely to require 
the agency to invest more heavily than is currently anticipated. NASA 
officials stated that the agency conducted a comprehensive review of 
these programs for the President's fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, 
issued in February 2012. The agency, however, will not be able to 
provide a baseline life-cycle cost estimate for these programs until 
February 2013 when NASA expects to have greater clarity of the issues 
surrounding integration of the programs. 

Observations about NASA's Continued Efforts to Improve Its Acquisition 
Management: 

NASA has been implementing initiatives to reduce acquisition 
management risk, which has been on GAO's high risk list for more than 
20 years.[Footnote 31] Specifically, NASA identified five areas for 
improvement--program/project management, cost reporting process, cost 
estimating and analysis, standard business processes, and management 
of financial management systems--each of which contains targets and 
goals to measure improvement. One of the most prominent efforts is the 
Joint Cost and Schedule Confidence Level (JCL), which is designed to 
help project officials with management, cost and schedule estimating, 
and maintenance of adequate levels of funding reserves. Another 
important effort is the implementation of earned value management 
(EVM) within certain programs and specific in-house efforts to help 
projects monitor the scheduled work done by contractors and employees. 
EVM is a program management tool being implemented at NASA centers 
that integrates technical, cost, and schedule parameters of a contract 
and uses those parameters to measure cost and schedule variances. This 
management tool, however, has not yet been institutionalized within 
the NASA centers. These efforts are positive steps toward addressing 
NASA's issues with meeting cost and schedule baselines; however, it is 
too early to assess the impact on NASA's performance. 

Challenges Related to JCL Implementation and Oversight: 

NASA's policy requires that a JCL be developed prior to a project's 
confirmation review.[Footnote 32] The JCL is a probabilistic analysis 
that includes, among other things, all cost and schedule elements, 
incorporates and quantifies potential risks, assesses the impacts of 
cost and schedule to date, and addresses available annual resources to 
arrive at development cost and schedule estimates associated with 
various confidence levels. The primary goals of the JCL are to provide 
assurance to stakeholders that NASA will meet cost and schedule 
targets and provide transparency on the effects of funding changes on 
the probability of meeting cost and schedule commitments. In general, 
projects' cost and schedule baselines are based on a 70 percent 
confidence level,[Footnote 33] unless the decision authority approves 
a different confidence level with appropriate justification and 
documentation. The cost baseline includes unallocated future expenses, 
which refer to the portion of resources identified in JCL 
probabilistic calculations that cannot yet be allocated to specific 
sub-elements of a program or project's plan as potential risks have 
not yet been realized. The move to the JCL process, or probabilistic 
estimating, marks a major departure from NASA's prior practice of 
establishing a point estimate and adding a percentage on top of that 
point estimate to provide for contingencies. When we use the term 
reserves in this report, we are referring to the unallocated future 
expenses held at the Mission Directorate level or at the project 
level, both of which are identified through JCL probabilistic 
calculations. Finally, projects must also be funded at a level 
equivalent to at least the 50 percent confidence level[Footnote 34]. 
The remaining funding is held as reserves at the Mission Directorate. 

Five projects in our review--LADEE, LDCM, MAVEN, MMS and OCO-2--
completed the JCL process according to NASA's policy.[Footnote 35] 
NASA officials told us, however, that a few projects have excluded or 
not fully considered relevant cost inputs and risks, such as launch 
vehicle costs and risks associated with development partner 
challenges. For example, the OCO-2 project's JCL estimate did not 
include the Taurus XL launch vehicle costs. NASA officials have also 
noted that projects have varying levels of proficiency in preparing 
JCLs. The LADEE project's JCL, for example, shows a narrow range of 
approximately $2 million between the 50 and 70 percent confidence 
levels. According to NASA officials, this narrow difference is 
indicative of an incomplete consideration of possible risks. The LADEE 
project's Standing Review Board also noted that the tool used to 
prepare the project JCL models risk in such a way that underestimates 
uncertainty. The Standing Review Board utilized independent cost and 
schedule estimates to support its recommendation that NASA add $25 
million in reserves and to push the launch readiness date back by a 
month or two. NASA officials emphasized that a primary goal moving 
forward is to be more consistent across projects in implementing the 
JCL policy. In 2009, NASA's Cost Analysis Division, established the 
development of a JCL implementation handbook as a key next step. 
According to NASA officials, they anticipate completing the handbook 
in fiscal year 2012. 

We were unable to independently confirm that the five projects that 
prepared a JCL were budgeted at the 70 percent confidence level or at 
a different confidence level approved by the decision authority. NASA 
subsequently provided additional documentation to clarify this issue, 
but it was not received in time to be included in our analysis. It is 
important that projects are budgeted to the appropriate confidence 
level given past studies that have linked cost growth to insufficient 
reserves, poorly phased funding profiles, and more generally, 
optimistic estimating practices. 

NASA has not yet launched a mission that used a JCL to support the 
establishment of the project baseline at the confirmation review. As a 
result, NASA officials stated it is too early to determine whether or 
not implementation of the JCL policy has helped current projects avoid 
cost and schedule overruns experienced by the agency's major projects 
in the past. NASA officials estimate that it will take up to 7 years 
to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the JCL. We agree that it 
is too early to evaluate the policy until a sufficient number of 
projects have launched, permitting a valid comparison between 
estimated and actual costs. It is important to note, however, that the 
baselines for NASA's Juno and GRAIL projects were established using a 
prior cost estimating policy, which required the projects to be 
budgeted at the 70 percent confidence level for cost, and both 
projects met their baseline commitments. 

Implementation of Earned Value Management at NASA Centers in Progress: 

NASA's goal is to develop and deploy an agencywide EVM capability that 
is compliant with generally accepted standards.[Footnote 36] As 
discussed in GAO's Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide,[Footnote 37] 
if implemented appropriately, EVM provides objective reports of 
project status, produces early warning signs of impending schedule 
delays and cost overruns, and can identify specific development 
efforts contributing to those overruns. While EVM is being used by 
some projects at NASA, it is not yet clear that it is being used 
consistently by the projects as a tool for managing cost and schedule. 
We have ongoing work assessing whether NASA's major projects are 
effectively using EVM techniques to manage their acquisitions and plan 
to issue a report in 2012. 

Project Assessments: 

The 2-page assessments of the projects we reviewed provide a profile 
of each project and describe the challenges we identified this year as 
well as challenges that we have identified in the past. On the first 
page, the project profile presents a general description of the 
mission objectives for each of the projects; a picture of the 
spacecraft or aircraft; a schedule timeline identifying key dates for 
the project; a table identifying programmatic, launch, and contract 
information; a table showing the current baseline year cost and 
schedule estimates and the January 2012 cost and schedule data; a 
table showing the challenges relevant to the project; and a project 
summary narrative. To maintain information on challenges the projects 
experience over their lifetime, we continued to identify project 
challenges that were previously reported. On the second page of the 
assessment, we provide an analysis of the project challenges, and 
outline the extent to which each project faces cost, schedule, or 
performance risk because of these challenges, if applicable. NASA 
project offices were provided an opportunity to review drafts of the 
assessments prior to their inclusion in the final product, and the 
projects provided both technical corrections and more general 
comments. We integrated the technical corrections as appropriate and 
characterized the general comments below the project update. 

See figure 8 below for an illustration of the layout of each 2-page 
assessment. 

Figure 8: Illustration of a Project's 2-Page Summary: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Specific points depicted on the illustration: 

A: Project Challenges: Summary listing of the challenges facing the 
project. 

B: General description of the mission's objectives. 

C: Project Essentials: Programmatic information including the 
responsible NASA center, international or domestic partners, launch 
information, mission duration, and the driver for the mission's 
requirements.  

D: Contract Information: Major contractor for the project, the type of 
contract and when it was awarded, and initial and current value of the 
contract. 

E: Illustration of the spacecraft of aircraft. 

F: Project Performance: Cost and schedule baseline estimates and the 
latest estimate updates. 

G: Project Summary: Brief narrative describing the current status of 
the project. 

H: Schedule timeline identifying key dates for the project including 
when the project began formulation, major design reviews, confirmation 
to begin the implementation phase, and launch or operating capability 
information. 

I: Project Update: Analysis of the project challenges and the extent 
to which each project faces cost, schedule, or performance risk 
because of these challenges. 

J: Project Office Comments: General comments provided by the cognizant 
project office. 

Source: GAO analysis. 

[End of figure] 

[End of section] 

Aquarius: 

[Refer to PDF for image: photograph] Source: NASA/VAFB. 

Formulation: 

12/03: Formulation start; 
06/05: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

09/05: Project confirmation; 
09/06: Critical design review; 
6/10/11: Launch date; 
12/11: GAO review. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Design Issues; 
* Development Partner Issues; 
* Funding Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)*; 

International Partner: Argentina’s National Committee of Space 
Activities (CONAE); 

Launch Date: June 10, 2011; 

Launch Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA; 

Launch Vehicle: Delta II; 

Mission Duration: 
3 years for Aquarius mission; 
5 years for SAC-D (CONAE) mission; 

Requirement derived from: 
Earth System Science Pathfinder Program Announcement of Opportunity 3. 

* JPL is a federally funded research and development center. 

Contract Information: 
Major Contractor: In-house development; 
Type of Contract: N/A; 
Date of Award: N/A; 
Initial Value of Contract: N/A; 
Current Value: N/A. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2008: $241.8 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $282.5 million; 
Change: 16.8%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2008: $35.5 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $35.6 million; 
Change: 0.3%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2008: $192.7 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $225.9 million; 
Change: 17.2%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2008: $13.6 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $20.9 million; 
Change: 63.7%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2008: July 2007; 
Latest Jan 2012: June 2011; 
Change: 23 months. 

Aquarius is a satellite mission developed by NASA and the Space Agency 
of Argentina (Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales, CONAE) to 
investigate the links between the global water cycle, ocean 
circulation, and the climate. It is measuring global sea surface 
salinity. The Aquarius science goals are to observe and model the 
processes that relate salinity variations to climatic changes in the 
global cycling of water and to understand how these variations 
influence the general ocean circulation. By measuring salinity 
globally for 3 years, Aquarius will provide a new view of the ocean’s 
role in climate. 

Project Summary: 

The Argentine Satélite de Aplicaciones Científicas (SAC)-D, including 
the Aquarius instrument, successfully launched on June 10, 2011. The 
Aquarius instrument has been commissioned and all systems are 
operating normally. In September 2011, NASA reported that the Aquarius 
instrument had produced its first global map of the salinity of the 
ocean surface. Prior to its launch, the project was delayed almost 2 
years due to delays in CONAE’s spacecraft development and testing. The 
cost associated with the delays and technical challenges amounted to a 
life-cycle cost increase of over $40 million. 

Project Update: 

On June 10, 2011, the Aquarius instrument successfully launched, along 
with Argentina’s SAC-D project, on a Delta II launch vehicle from 
Vandenberg Air Force Base. The project was successfully commissioned 
in August 2011 and the Aquarius instrument has begun to return science 
data, including its first global map of the salinity of the ocean 
surface. As launched, the Aquarius project was almost 17 percent over 
budget and almost 2 years behind schedule. 

Design Issues: 

Although the Aquarius instrument was successfully commissioned in 
August and has started returning science data, NASA continues to 
monitor residual instrument and spacecraft risks and their potential 
impact on the Aquarius instrument. For example, one residual 
instrument risk is the reliability analysis of the system clock on the 
instrument, an analysis that was not performed to JPL’s standards and 
the design margins were not fully demonstrated. While the likelihood 
is low, a part failure or degraded clock performance can result in the 
instrument command and data subsystem failure and a potential for loss 
of the Aquarius mission. According to project officials, this 
instrument risk was accepted and cleared for launch by NASA’s Chief 
Engineer and Mission Assurance offices. The project is also monitoring 
a risk for the SAC-D spacecraft solar arrays. The solar array used was 
the first developed by the vendor and NASA has concerns about possible 
workmanship and reliability issues. The Aquarius project deems this 
risk as very unlikely due to insight provided by having NASA subject 
matter experts participate in the design reviews and development 
activities for the solar array. The failure of the solar cells or 
strings, however, would reduce the power generation capability of the 
spacecraft. 

Development Partner Issues: 

Leading up to its launch, Aquarius continued to experience life-cycle 
cost impacts. Officials stated that these were due, in part, to delays 
on the SAC-D project. For example, NASA reported to Congress in the 
agency’s fiscal year 2012 budget estimates that the Aquarius mission’s 
development costs had grown by 18 percent from its 2007 baseline and 
the launch was to be delayed by 23 months. Subsequently, NASA reported 
to GAO that development costs had increased an additional $7 million 
to retain personnel due to delays in the international partner’s 
implementation schedule. According to project officials and budget 
documents, delays in the development of the spacecraft bus by CONAE 
contributed to the development cost increase and schedule slip. 

Funding Issues: 

Because no funds were being exchanged between the U.S. and Argentina 
for this project, NASA bore the costs it incurred that were associated 
with schedule delays. 

Project Office Comments: 

The Aquarius project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that the SAC-D spacecraft carrying the Aquarius 
instrument successfully launched on June 10, 2011. They added that the 
Aquarius instrument completed its commissioning phase in August 2011 
and the transition from development to operations, including the 
transition from JPL management to GSFC management, occurred on Dec. 1, 
2011. Further, project officials stated that Aquarius has started 
returning high quality data enabling mapping of global ocean salinity. 

[End of fact sheet] 

ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: ESA (artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

03/11: Formulation start; 
12/11: GAO review; 
N/A: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

N/A: Project confirmation; 
N/A: Critical design review; 
N/A: Launch date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Funding issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Jet Propulsion Lab; 
International Partner: European Space Agency; 
Projected Launch Date: N/A; 
Launch Location: N/A; 
Launch Vehicle: N/A; 
Mission Duration: N/A; 
Requirement derived from: 2011 Planetary Decadal Survey. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: The project is in formulation, and no prime 
contractor has yet been selected; 
Type of Contract: N/A; 
Date of Award: N/A; 
Initial Value of Contract: N/A; 
Current Value: N/A. 

Project Performance: 

Then year dollars in millions: 

Preliminary estimate of Project Life Cycle Cost*: 

Latest: Feb 2012: Proposed for termination. 

* The project has not yet reached the point in the acquisition life 
cycle where a preliminary life-cycle cost estimate would normally be 
developed. 

Launch Schedule: N/A. 

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (EMTGO) was planned to be the first of 
two joint missions that were planned to be developed by NASA and the 
European Space Agency (ESA) for launch in 2016 and 2018. EMTGO was 
envisioned to investigate trace gases on Mars that may be signatures 
of active biological and/or geographical processes. EMTGO instruments 
were to be designed to work across different bands of the 
electromagnetic spectrum, including infrared, visible, and ultraviolet 
light. EMTGO was to provide the data relay services for future 
missions. 

Project Summary: 

The Administration has proposed to terminate funding for NASA’s EMTGO 
project and planning for the NASA/ESA Mars 2018 mission concept in the 
Fiscal Year 2013 President’s Budget Request due to budgetary 
constraints. Prior to this announcement, NASA was responsible for four 
EMTGO instruments that were competitively selected in August 2010, the 
Electra Relay Radio, and the Science Operations. The NASA hardware was 
largely based on heritage technology. ESA is currently planning to 
provide the spacecraft, one instrument, and an Entry Descent Module. 
ESA began development about two years ahead of NASA. 

Project Update: 

EMTGO was part of Europe’s long-term plan for the robotic and human 
exploration of the solar system. ESA was to provide the Trace Gas 
Orbiter, which would orbit Mars to search for trace gases, indicate 
the variation and location of them, and provide images of the surface 
related to where those gases emanate and where they are removed from 
the atmosphere. The orbiter was also to perform as a 
telecommunications link for this and potentially future missions. ESA 
was planning to provide the spacecraft, one instrument, and an Entry 
Descent Module to demonstrate the ESA’s ability to land on Mars. NASA 
was to be responsible for four instruments on the Trace Gas Orbiter: 
the Mars Atmosphere Trace Molecule Occultation Spectrometer, the 
ExoMars Climate Sounder, the Mars Atmosphere Global Imaging 
Experiment, and the High Resolution Stereo Color Imager. NASA was also 
responsible for the Electra Relay Radio and the Science Operations for 
the mission. According to project officials, two of the instruments 
have flown previously, the other two are new designs with heritage 
elements, and the Electra Relay Radio is a copy of the radio for the 
MAVEN project. According to ESA, this technology demonstration would 
allow the agency to test key technologies for potential future 
missions. 

Funding Issues: 

The Administration has proposed to terminate funding for NASA’s EMTGO 
project and planning for the NASA/ESA Mars 2018 mission concept in the 
Fiscal Year 2013 President’s Budget Request due to funding 
constraints. Prior to the announcement of the proposed cancellation, 
agency had delayed EMTGO’s scheduled January 2012 confirmation due to 
a NASA review of the Mars program, which was initiated as a result of 
the agency’s overall funding constraints. These constraints include 
the recent JWST project’s cost increases. NASA’s Director of the 
Planetary Science Division testified to Congress in November 2011 that 
NASA and ESA were jointly reviewing the 2016 mission given increasing 
budget pressures. In addition, NASA had originally planned to provide 
an Atlas V launch vehicle for EMTGO. However, NASA officials report 
that in September 2011 the agency informed ESA that it should not 
expect NASA to be able to provide the Launch Vehicle for the 2016 
mission due to budgetary reasons. 

Project Office Comments: 

The EMTGO project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. NASA officials 
also commented that the agency has made tough but sustainable choices 
to provide stability and continuity to existing programs and set an 
affordable pace for unfolding the next great chapter in exploration. 
They added that NASA will not be moving forward with the planned 2016 
and 2018 ExoMars missions that it had been exploring with the European 
Space Agency. Instead NASA will develop an integrated strategy to 
ensure that the next steps for robotic Mars Exploration program will 
support science as well as human exploration goals, technology 
advances, and to potentially take advantage of the 2018-2020 Mars 
exploration window. The officials reported that the budget provides 
support for this new approach, and this process will be informed by 
extensive coordination with the science community and our 
international partners. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Global Precipitation Measurement Mission: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: GPM Project Office 
(artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

02/07: Formulation start; 
11/08: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

12/09: Project confirmation; 
12/09: Critical design review; 
12/11: GAO review; 
06/14: Launch Core spacecraft. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 

* Funding Issues; 
* Development Partner Issues; 
* Contractor Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Technology Issues; 
* Design Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
International Partner: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA); 
Projected Launch Date: June 2014; 
Launch Location: Tanegashima Island, Japan; 
Launch Vehicle: JAXA supplied; 
Mission Duration: 3 years; 
Requirement derived from: Revalidated in the Earth Science Decadal 
Survey, 2007. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp.
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Award Fee; 
Date of Award: 2005; 
Initial Value of Contract: $97.6 million; 
Current Value: $214.6 million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $975.9 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $932.8 million; 
Change: -4.4%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $349.2 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $349.2 million; 
Change: 0.0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $555.2 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $519.3 million; 
Change: -0.5%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $71.6 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $64.3 million; 
Change: -10.2%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: July 2013; 
Latest Jan 2012: June 2014; 
Change: 11 months. 

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, a joint NASA and 
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) project, seeks to improve
the scientific understanding of the global water cycle and the 
accuracy of precipitation forecasts. The GPM is composed of a core 
spacecraft carrying two main instruments: a Dual-frequency Precipitation
Radar (DPR) and a GPM Microwave Imager (GMI). GPM builds on the work 
of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, and will provide an 
opportunity to calibrate measurements of global precipitation. 

Project Summary: 

Faced with low schedule reserve for GPM, NASA reported in October 2011 
that the project has delayed the launch date 11 months to June 2014. 
After the March 2011 earthquake in Japan, the project’s international 
development partner experienced component and delivery issues with an 
instrument that contributed to the delayed launch of the spacecraft. 
The project is also experiencing late delivery of several components 
for the spacecraft and the GPM Microwave Imager (GMI-1) instrument, 
which will result in a delay in the integration and test schedule. The 
project, in one instance, had to use a second manufacturer for a 
spacecraft component to mitigate the original contractor’s low 
production capacity. 

Project Update: 

Funding Issues: 

In October 2011, NASA reported that the project had delayed its launch 
date 11 months from July 2013 to June 2014. In July 2011, the project 
reported that it was working on an internal replan for a November 2013 
launch date. At that time, the project manager stated that the project 
did not have enough schedule reserve without working weekends to meet 
the July 2013 launch date, and that this delay primarily stemmed from 
late delivery of the project’s two primary instruments and spacecraft 
components from its contractors and Japanese development partner. 
According to NASA, the further delay to June 2014 was due to the 
earthquake in Japan that further delayed development of the partner-
provided instrument as well as additional delays in the spacecraft and 
GPM Microwave Imager (GMI) development. NASA was also developing a 
second instrument—GMI-2—where NASA reported investing part of its $32 
million in funds received under the American Recovery and Reinvestment 
Act of 2009 in its development. The President’s fiscal year 2012 
budget request, however, recommended discontinuing GMI-2 funding. 
Although the science requirements for GPM can still be met without 
flying the GMI-2 instrument, project officials reported that without 
the instrument the available science data from the mission would not 
be as robust as originally intended. 

Development Partner Issues: 

Project officials stated that NASA has had positive coordination and 
communication with the Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency (JAXA), 
which is providing the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) and 
the launch vehicle for the GPM spacecraft. After the March 2011 
earthquake in Japan, JAXA experienced component and delivery issues 
with the DPR instrument, which contributed to the second launch delay 
until June 2014 from launch date of November 2013 in NASA’s internal 
replan. Project officials said that without the DPR they cannot start 
environmental testing. In June 2011, GPM’s program executive reported 
that the NASA administrator and the JAXA president had agreed to 
include a secondary JAXA payload on GPM, which could further affect 
the project’s cost and launch date. Project officials stated that JAXA 
agreed to all GPM requirements and requests for safety reviews and to 
delete the secondary payload satellites if they present a hazard to 
the GPM observatory. 

Contractor Issues: 

Prior to the events in Japan, GPM’s project schedule had already been 
affected by the late delivery of the GMI instrument being built by 
Ball Aerospace and the Power System Electronics and Command and Data 
Handling unit supplied by Northrop Grumman. For example, the GMI 
instrument will not be delivered until at least January 2012, which is 
after it was scheduled to be available for integration and test, due 
to issues with its radio frequency receivers. Further, given a lack of 
capacity on the part of Northrop Grumman to produce the Power System 
Electronics and Command and Data Handling units, according to the 
project it had to utilize a second manufacturer to help mitigate the 
late deliveries of these components. The impact of these delays was 
lessened when the project slipped the launch date to June 2014. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: 

GPM officials reported that a scheduling conflict with the James Webb 
Space Telescope for test facilities has created risk to the GPM 
schedule for thermal vacuum testing. The project is also encountering 
scheduling conflicts with other test facilities for system-level 
testing and has looked at outside facilities, including non-NASA 
centers, to mitigate the problem. 

Project Office Comments: 

The GPM project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: Courtesy of NSAS/JPL-
Caltech (artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

12/07: Formulation start; 
11/08: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

01/09: Project confirmation; 
11/09: Critical design review; 
09/08/11: Launch date; 
12/11: GAO review. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges
* Contractor Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges
* Technology Issues; 
* Launch Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); 
International Partner: None; 
Launch Date: September 8, 2011; 
Launch Location: Kennedy Space Center, FL; 
Launch Vehicle: Delta II Heavy; 
Mission Duration: 9 months; 
Requirement derived from: NASA Strategic Plan. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Lockheed Martin Corporation; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Incentive Fee; 
Date of Award: February 2009; 
Initial Value of Contract: $113.4 million; 
Current Value: $129.3 million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $496.2 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $467.2 million; 
Change: -1.8%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $50.5 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $50.6 million; 
Change: 0.2%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $427.0 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $398.3 million; 
Change: -6.7%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $16.7 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $38.3 million; 
Change: 104.8%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: September 2011; 
Latest Jan 2012: September 2011; 
Change: 0 months. 

The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission will seek 
to determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core, 
advance our understanding of the thermal evolution of the Moon, and 
extend our knowledge gained from the Moon to other terrestrial-type 
planets. GRAIL will achieve its science objectives by placing twin 
spacecraft in a low altitude and nearly circular polar orbit. The two 
spacecraft will perform high-precision measurements between them. 
Analysis of changes in the spacecraft-to-spacecraft data caused by 
gravitational differences will provide direct and precise measurements 
of lunar gravity. GRAIL will ultimately provide a global, high-
accuracy, high-resolution gravity map of the Moon. 

Project Update: 

GRAIL successfully launched on September 10, 2011, and the twin 
spacecraft—recently named Ebb and Flow—achieved lunar orbit on 
December 31, 2011, and January 1, 2012. The project met its 
commitments within cost and on schedule. In January 2012, NASA 
reported that the GRAIL project underran its development costs by more 
than $28 million. The project will use a portion of that savings to 
accommodate operations costs and provide funding for unknown technical 
risks. 

Contractor Issues: 

Contractor workforce levels were higher than planned for the year 
prior to launch. Project officials stated that this was due primarily 
to late avionics deliveries, including staff to support these late 
deliveries, and a delay of the software acceptance test program. The 
project used available cost and schedule reserves to offset the impact 
of these issues, which the project estimated to be 6 weeks and $11 
million. The project used engineering units for test purposes while 
waiting for the flight units. Project officials stated that using 
engineering units provided a significant mitigation to additional 
schedule loss that may have caused cost increases. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: 

The project continues to monitor availability of Deep Space Network 
(DSN) communications resources. According to project officials, the 
project may have to negotiate with other projects during its late 
cruise and late transition to science formation periods in order to 
obtain necessary DSN coverage. They stated that GRAIL project analysis 
indicated that the DSN will be oversubscribed in the late 2011 and 
early 2012 time frame. Officials noted that for the science phase of 
the mission in early 2012, GRAIL revised its tracking coverage 
requirement from 24 to 16 hours per day at no impact to science. The 
project has also approved the purchase of additional receivers at the 
three DSN complexes to receive the tracking signals from both 
spacecraft simultaneously while in the science phase. 

Project Office Comments: 

The GRAIL project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that GRAIL successfully launched two spacecraft on 
September 10, 2011, on schedule, within cost, and that the spacecraft 
were performing well. They added that GRAIL had successfully obtained, 
or negotiated support for, all required DSN coverage through lunar 
orbit insertion. The project remains concerned about portions of the 
transition to science formation; however, project officials expect any 
scheduling conflicts will be resolved in early 2012. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: ICESat-2 Project Office 
(artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

12/09: Formulation start; 
12/11: GAO review; 
06/12: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

07/12: Project confirmation; 
04/13: Critical design review; 
04/16-11/16: Launch readiness date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Launch Issues; 
* Funding Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
International Partner: None; 
Projected Launch Date: April - November 2016; 
Launch Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA; 
Launch Vehicle: TBD; 
Mission Duration: 3 years (5 year goal); 
Requirement derived from: 2007 Earth Science Decadal Survey. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Orbital Sciences Corp. m
Type of Contract: Fixed Price; 
Date of Award: September 2011; 
Initial Value of Contract: $135.1 million; 
Current Value: $135.1 million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Preliminary estimate of Project Life Cycle Cost*: 
Latest Jan 2012: $686-$776 million. 

* This estimate is preliminary, as the project is in formulation and 
there is uncertainty regarding the costs associated with the design 
options being explored. NASA uses these estimates for planning 
purposes. 

Launch schedule: 04/2016-11/2016. 

NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) is a 
first-tier mission recommended by the National Research Council in its 
2007 Earth Science Decadal Survey. ICESat-2 is a follow-on mission to 
ICESat, tasked with measuring changes in polar ice-sheet mass with 
space-borne altimetry measurements to understand mechanisms that drive 
change and the impact of these changes on future global sea level. 
ICESat-2 will utilize a micro-pulse multi-beam laser instrument with a 
photon counting approach to measurement. This process will allow for 
dense cross-track sampling with a high repetition rate, allowing 
ICESat-2 to provide better elevation estimates over high slope and 
rough areas. 

Project Summary: 

The launch vehicle for ICESat-2 is currently undefined. NASA is 
reviewing a plan to launch ICESat-2 with an Air Force mission to allow 
the project to share launch expenses, potentially saving money and 
helping the project stay within cost parameters. However, schedule 
delays with the Air Force mission may result in ICESat-2 procuring its 
own launch vehicle, which project officials state will add cost to the 
mission. Although the project has not been confirmed with a baseline 
cost and schedule, project officials are now reporting an April 2016 
launch date, which is 6 months after the preliminary date previously 
reported. 

Project Update: 

In July 2011, ICESat-2 successfully completed a management review and 
the project was approved to enter Phase B, preliminary design and 
technology completion. Although ICESat-2 will not have an approved 
baseline schedule until it is confirmed in July 2012, its planned 
launch date is 6 months later than previously reported and is now 
tentatively scheduled for April 2016. The project has begun to award 
contracts for key project technologies and development. For example, 
in May 2011 the project awarded a contract to one of the four vendors 
working to mature micro-pulse laser technology—-Fibertek, Inc. Also, 
in August 2011, the project awarded the contract for spacecraft 
development to Orbital Sciences Corporation. 

Launch Issues/Funding Issues: 

According to project officials the launch vehicle for ICESat-2 remains 
undefined because of the high cost of appropriate launch vehicles. In 
order to reduce the cost of a launch vehicle and stay within its life-
cycle cost range estimate, the project is currently pursuing a plan to 
launch ICESat-2 on the same vehicle—-or co-manifest--with an Air Force 
weather satellite mission. If ICESat-2 were to co-manifest with the 
Air Force mission, the launch vehicle would be procured by the Air 
Force. NASA would, however, have a reduced level of oversight and 
control since the Air Force would be responsible for managing and 
mitigating launch vehicle risks. There would also be increased 
schedule and technical challenges with having two separate missions 
launch at the same time. NASA would be responsible for an estimated 
$50 million to cover developing a device to enable the two missions to 
launch together on the same vehicle and project launch site costs. 
Currently, due to potential budget constraints with Air Force weather 
satellite missions, it is possible that the Air Force mission would be 
delayed. If an agreement cannot be reached between the Air Force and 
NASA for co-manifesting the missions, project officials said they will 
work with NASA Launch Services to procure a launch vehicle to 
independently launch ICESat-2, which they added would be significantly 
more costly. 

Project officials stated that, optimally, the project would know the 
launch vehicle selection by preliminary design review (PDR) because 
launch vehicle and spacecraft interfaces are developed at that point. 
They added that the project has flexibility within its spacecraft 
contract to allow for a delay up to a year in defining the launch 
vehicle at a fixed price. The project is planning on holding the 
mission PDR in June 2012, which would allow the project up to June 
2013 to select the launch vehicle. NASA officials added, however, that 
the instrument CDR is planned for October 2012 and any design changes 
required beyond that point driven by a subsequent launch vehicle 
selection would drive cost and schedule. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: 

The ICESat-2 project is tracking a risk on the Advanced Topographic 
Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) instrument—which is being developed in 
house by NASA—because of uncertainty in the daily data volume. This 
issue could lead to the project not allocating enough space for the 
daily science data to be downloaded and result in a loss of data. To 
mitigate the potential loss of data, the project is working on a plan 
to better identify the level of background noise, which can contribute 
to higher daily data volume, and provide appropriate capacity in the 
ground system in case the data volume is unexpectedly higher than 
current predictions. 

Project Office Comments: 

The ICESat-2 project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that the ATLAS instrument completed its preliminary 
design review in November 2011. 

[End of fact sheet] 

James Webb Space Telescope: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: Northrup Grumman 
Aerospace Systems (artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

03/99: Formulation start; 
03/08: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

07/08: Project confirmation; 
03/10: Critical design review; 
12/11: GAO review; 
10/18: Launch readiness date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Funding Issues; 
* Contractor Issues; 
* Design Issues; 
* Technology Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Complexity of Heritage Technology. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
International Partners: European Space Agency (ESA), Canadian Space 
Agency (CSA); 
Projected Launch Date: October 2018; 
Launch Location: Kourou, French Guiana; 
Launch Vehicle: Ariane 5 (ESA Supplied); 
Mission Duration: 5 years (10 year goal); 
Requirement derived from: Astrophysics Decadal Survey, 2001. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Northrop Grumman Aerospace Company; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Award Fee; 
Date of Award: 2002; 
Initial Value of Contract: $824.8 million; 
Current Value: $1.93 billion. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $4963.6 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $8835.0 million; 
Change: 78%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $1800.1 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $1800.1 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $2581.1 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $61.97.9 million; 
Change: 140.1%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $582.4 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $837.0 million; 
Change: 43.7%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: June 2014; 
Latest Jan 2012: October 2018; 
Change: 62 months. 

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized 
space telescope that is designed to find the first galaxies that 
formed in the early universe. Its focus will include searching for 
first light, assembly of galaxies, origins of stars and planetary 
systems, and origins of the elements necessary for life. JWST’s 
instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range 
of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible 
range. JWST will have a large primary mirror composed of 18 smaller 
mirrors, measuring 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter, and a sunshield 
that is the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshield will 
unfold and open once JWST is in outer space. JWST will reside in an 
orbit about 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) from the Earth. 

Project Summary: 

In October 2011, NASA announced that the estimate of the project’s 
total life-cycle cost is now $8.835 billion with a launch readiness 
date in October 2018. NASA has restructured JWST’s management by 
taking the lead role in systems engineering from the prime contractor 
and providing more oversight of contractors developing the 
instruments. Though much progress has been made, the project has 
technical challenges remaining with the design of the sunshield and 
completion of the spacecraft bus, which was delayed as the project 
worked on higher priority instrument development efforts. The project 
has experienced instrument delivery and design issues that have 
delayed integration and testing efforts. 

Project Update: 

Funding Issues: 

In 2011, the JWST program underwent a replan in response to an 
Independent Comprehensive Review Panel report issued in October 2010. 
In October 2011, NASA reported that the estimate of the project’s 
total life-cycle cost is now $8.835 billion—which includes a 
development cost increase of 140 percent from its baseline with a 
launch readiness date of October 2018, a delay of 52 months. NASA and 
Northrop Grumman officials reported that the project, as part of the 
replan efforts, was to assume a constrained budget environment for 
fiscal years 2011 and 2012 and unconstrained budgets after that. In 
early 2011, project officials called for the contractor and 
subcontractors to cease reporting earned value management (EVM) data 
until the replanning effort is complete and the project is 
rebaselined. NASA officials also reported that there are no descoped 
options available that would still allow it to meet the science 
requirements. According to NASA officials, other projects, starting 
with those that have not yet been confirmed, may face possible 
cancellation to help offset JWST’s costs. The future of the project 
was debated within Congress as the House Appropriations Committee 
recommended terminating funding for JWST, while the Senate 
provisionally funded the program in its bill but proposed a 
development cost cap of $8 billion for the project. In November 2011, 
Congress funded the project for fiscal year 2012 with an $8 billion 
cost cap for the formulation and development phases of the project. 

Contractor Issues: 

The JWST project instituted several changes to the work being 
performed by its contractors. For example, the project has changed the 
award fee structure for the prime contract with Northrop Grumman to 
make a greater percentage of the award fee dependent on meeting the 
cost target, according to NASA. NASA also reported that it has assumed 
the lead role for the systems engineering functions of the program as 
well as some of the integration and testing responsibility from 
Northrop Grumman as it believes it is better suited to perform these 
tasks, according to NASA. Northrop Grumman, however, will maintain the 
systems engineering role over the spacecraft elements that it has 
under contract for development, according to both NASA and Northrop 
Grumman. Project officials also stated that because of Lockheed Martin’
s struggles in developing the near infrared camera and changes in the 
Lockheed Martin contractual requirements, the delivery of the 
instrument has been delayed and is over budget, resulting in a cost 
increase between $60 million and $200 million. In addition, the 
project sent two representatives to the contractor facility for 
increased oversight. The increase in cost for the near infrared camera 
was encompassed in the replan. 

Design/Technology Issues: 

In September 2011, the project announced that it had completed 
polishing and coating all of the 18 primary mirrors. Technical 
challenges, however, remain in developing the sunshield, according to 
NASA. For example, NASA officials stated that challenges with the 
sunshield are making sure the membrane does not rip inside the fairing 
during liftoff and that it unfolds properly in space. Project 
officials also told us that work on the spacecraft was delayed while 
the project was working on the higher risk development of the 
instruments, most of which are now complete. In addition, the project 
reported problems affecting the instruments that will be included on 
the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) would have caused a 
schedule delay, but were incorporated in the replan. These problems 
included degradation of near-infrared detectors and structural cracks 
found in the near infrared spectrograph with potential impact to its 
functionality. According to the project, although the ISIM structure 
began integration and testing in the summer of 2011, the delay in the 
delivery of the spacecraft bus will likely cause the project to store 
the primary mirrors and the ISIM instruments for up to 43 and 31 
months, respectively, until integration and testing with the 
spacecraft begins. Project officials report that they have no concerns 
about the long periods of inactivity for these components. 

Project Office Comments: 
The JWST project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Juno: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: NSAS/JPL (artist 
depiction). 

Formulation: 

07/05: Formulation start; 
05/08: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

08/08: Project confirmation; 
04/09: Critical design review; 
08/05/11: Launch date; 
12/11: GAO review. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Design Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Technology Issues; 
* Contractor Issues; 
* Development Partner Issues; 
* Parts Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); 
International Partners: Agencia Spaziale Italiana - Selex Galileo; 
ASI – Thales Alenia Space, Centre Spatial de Liege Belgian Science 
Policy, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales – Centre d’Etude; 
Launch Date: August 5, 2011; 
Launch Location: Cape Canaveral AFS, FL; 
Launch Vehicle: Atlas V; 
Mission Duration: 6 years; 
Requirement derived from: New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Lockheed Martin; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Award Fee/Incentive Fee; 
Date of Award: August 2008; 
Initial Value of Contract: $195.0 Million; 
Current Value: $251.1 Million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $1107.0 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $1107.0 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $186.3 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $186.3 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $742.3 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $710.5 million; 
Change: -4.3%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $178.4 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $210.2 million; 
Change: 17.8%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: August 2011; 
Latest Jan 2012: August 2011; 
Change: 0 months. 

The Juno mission seeks to improve our understanding of the origin and 
evolution of Jupiter. Juno plans to achieve its scientific objectives 
by using a simple, solar-powered spacecraft to make global maps of the 
gravity, magnetic fields, and atmospheric conditions of Jupiter from a 
unique elliptical orbit. The spacecraft carries precise, highly 
sensitive radiometers, magnetometers, and gravity science systems. 
Juno is slated to make 32 orbits to sample Jupiter’s full range of 
latitudes and longitudes. From its polar perspective, Juno is designed 
to combine local and remote sensing observations to explore the polar 
magnetosphere and determine what drives Jupiter’s auroras. 

Project Summary: 

Juno successfully launched on August 5, 2011, and began its 5-year 
cruise phase to Jupiter. Although the project launched within cost and 
on schedule, it exhausted most of the project-level reserves and may 
request additional funding from headquarters for post-launch 
development activities. Late delivery of components led the project to 
use cost and schedule reserves to offset the impact of delayed testing 
and increased workforce to meet the scheduled launch date. During the 
initial checkout process of Juno’s instruments and sensors, it was 
determined that two of its components are running at higher than 
expected temperatures, due in part to a radiator not being placed in 
the recommended position. 

Project Update: 

The Juno project successfully launched on August 5, 2011, and expects 
to reach Jupiter in 2016. The project is performing initial status 
checks on the spacecraft and instruments. The project met its 
commitments within cost and on schedule. 

The project exhausted most of its project-held reserves due, largely, 
to increased workforce and unanticipated technical challenges. Due to 
the late delivery of the avionics, environmental testing of Juno was 
delayed and completed 6 weeks behind schedule. As a result, the 
initial integration phase of the project took longer than planned and 
required additional workforce shifts to maintain the schedule margin 
within acceptable levels. After using most of its project-level 
reserves, Juno received an additional $15 million of unallocated 
future expenses in April 2011 from the Science Mission Directorate to 
cover costs through the launch date. Despite this added funding, the 
project acknowledges it may need to request additional funds. Project 
officials reported that the additional funding will allow the project 
to carry over reserves to the operations phase in order to support 
post-launch development activities. In January 2012, NASA reported 
that $18 million in unused reserves from development were being 
carried forward to the operations phase. 

Design Issues: 

Two of Juno’s components—the Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment–
Ion (JADE I) sensor and the Jupiter InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) 
detector—are running at higher temperatures than predicted on-orbit. 
The project has found that part of the temperature difference for JADE 
I is due to a discrepancy in the radiator placement. The project’s 
thermal team had recommended that the radiator be placed in one 
location on the sensor, but it was built in another. According to 
project officials, a build team worker determined that the radiator 
would not fit in the recommended position due to overcrowding of 
components; however, the change in location was not communicated back 
to the thermal team. The project team is currently updating its 
thermal model to uncover additional heating sources to attempt to 
explain the remaining temperature difference. The project has delayed 
the instrument checkout until the spacecraft has reached a location 
where the sensor can be turned on at a temperature below its operating 
limit. The project is concerned whether the JADE I sensor will 
maintain calibration as it orbits close to the sun during its cruise 
to Jupiter due to the increase in the thermal environment. If the JADE 
I sensor does not maintain its calibration, it could result in reduced 
quality of science data collected. The JIRAM detector is a temperature 
sensitive component and, while it is not needed to meet the project 
science requirements, a warmer than expected detector may have an 
impact on science data quality. The project manager said that the 
project is currently working to determine the root causes for the 
JIRAM detector’s overheating issues. 

The Juno project had released only 39 percent of the engineering 
drawings at the critical design review (CDR). Project officials, 
however, said they were able to budget for and use engineering models 
for all instruments to demonstrate design maturity at CDR. For some 
spacecraft components, the Juno project did not build or test 
engineering models because they were heritage designs. For example, 
some spacecraft components being utilized are very similar to the ones 
used on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter; therefore, the project 
accepted some of the spacecraft designs based on qualification testing. 

Project Office Comments: 

The Juno project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that Juno completed its development within cost and on 
schedule and launched successfully on the first day of its launch 
period. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Landsat Data Continuity Mission: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: Orbital (artist 
depiction). 

Formulation: 

10/03: Formulation start; 
07/09: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

12/09: Project confirmation; 
05/10: Critical design review; 
12/11: GAO review; 
06/13: Launch readiness date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Funding Issues; 
* Development Partner Issues; 
* Parts Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Technology Maturity. 

project essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
Partner: U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); 
Projected Launch Date: June 2013; 
Launch Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA; 
Launch Vehicle: Atlas V; 
Mission Duration: 5 years (10 years propellant); 
Requirement derived from: Continuation of Landsat data series, 1972. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Award Fee; 
Date of Award: July 2007; 
Initial Value of Contract: $127.8 million; 
Current Value: $188.7 million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $941.7 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $931.2 million; 
Change: -1.1%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $341.5 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $341.4 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $583.4 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $577.2 million; 
Change: -1.1%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $16.8 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $12.5 million; 
Change: -25.6%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: June 2013; 
Latest Jan 2012: June 2013; 
Change: 0 months. 

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), a partnership between NASA 
and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), seeks to extend the 
ability to detect and quantitatively characterize changes on the 
global land surface at a scale where natural and man-made causes of 
change can be detected and differentiated. It is the successor mission 
to Landsat 7. The Landsat data series, begun in 1972, is the longest 
continuous record of changes in the Earth’s surface as seen from 
space. Landsat data is a resource for people who work in agriculture, 
geology, forestry, regional planning, education, mapping, and global 
change research. 

Project Summary: 

The LDCM project continues to work toward a December 2012 launch in 
order to avoid or minimize a gap in Landsat data. However, LDCM is 
facing technical and schedule hurdles that may result in the project 
launching in December 2012 without fully testing the Thermal Infrared 
Sensor instrument (TIRS), which would increase project risk of failing 
to meet mission requirements. The project experienced delays due, in 
part, to design issues in the launch lock mechanism on TIRS, and 
delays getting parts for the spacecraft. The project is also concerned 
about the funding stability of LDCM’s ground system partner, the 
United States Geological Survey (USGS). 

Project Update: 

LDCM is facing technical and schedule hurdles that project officials 
stated may result in the project launching in December 2012 without 
fully testing the TIRS instrument, increasing project risk of failing 
to meet mission requirements. TIRS was added to LDCM during the 
confirmation process with an estimated additional cost to the project 
of $160 million. The Standing Review Board acknowledged at that time 
that the schedule for TIRS was aggressive to meet a December 2012 
launch date, and recommended establishing a baseline launch date of 
June 2013, while continuing to internally work towards December 2012. 
Project officials stated that launching in December 2012 is essential 
because of the risk of a gap in science data if the Landsat 5 and 7, 
which are both currently operating well past their design lives, cease 
operations. 

Funding Issues: 

LDCM is less than a year from its internal launch date, and project 
officials are using reserve funding held at headquarters to finish 
TIRS development. TIRS development consumed the cost reserves held by 
the project for fiscal year 2011 and resulted in the need for the 
project to receive cost reserves held at NASA headquarters. Project 
officials stated that TIRS has used an average of approximately $1.5 
million of project-held reserves per month during the last year. The 
TIRS instrument is going to be delivered late, in part, because of an 
issue with the launch lock releasing correctly and unexpected 
performance of the instrument during thermal vacuum chamber testing. 
Despite the use of reserve funding, NASA recently reported that it was 
lowering the LDCM lifecycle cost estimate by 1.1 percent due to 
retirement of key cost risks pertaining to the delivery and 
integration of the Operational Land Imager instrument and completion 
of TIRS environmental testing. Project officials stated that the total 
Mission Directorate-managed unallocated future expenses are enough 
funding to cover project costs in the event of a launch delay into 
2013, but potential launch services costs for such a delay could 
exceed this amount. Project officials stated, for example, that 
potential launch services costs associated with the change in launch 
date might cause the project to exceed its total life cycle cost. 
Project officials also stated concern that the launch manifest in 2013 
is crowded and that the project could be further delayed past the June 
2013 baseline date as a result. 

Development Partner Issues: 

The project stated concern about the funding stability of LDCM’s 
ground system partner, the USGS. As we previously reported, USGS had 
amended its agreement with NASA to defer some of USGS’s development 
funding responsibilities to operational funding in later years. NASA 
officials stated that it is unclear whether USGS will have the budget 
to fully fund its commitment for the remaining development phase and 
operations phase after launch. 

Parts Issues: 

The project also experienced delays getting flight components for the 
spacecraft, including the star tracker and the flight payload 
interface electronics, necessitating workarounds in testing, with 
potential risks to the observatory integration and testing timeline. 
The star tracker delay was, in part, a result of instability exhibited 
during testing. The star tracker also had an issue with chips on a 
data processing board that had to be replaced; this issue was reported 
by other projects as well. 

Project Office Comments: 

The LDCM project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that all threshold (minimum) requirements can be 
achieved solely by the Operational Land Imager. They added that they 
expect TIRS will be fully tested, satisfy its baseline requirements, 
and delivered in sufficient time to meet the current launch readiness 
date. Project officials also reported that, as a schedule driven 
mission committed to an internal launch readiness date of December 
2012, LDCM requested additional reserves in December 2010 as a 
proactive approach to mission management across the project to meet 
this schedule. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: LADEE Project Office 
(artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

02/08: Formulation start; 
07/10: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

08/10: Project confirmation; 
06/11: Critical design review; 
12/11: GAO review; 
11/13: Launch readiness date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Technology Issues; 
* Launch Issues; 
* Design Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Parts Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Ames Research Center; 
International Partners: None; 
Projected Launch Date: November 2013; 
Launch Location: Wallops Flight Facility, VA; 
Launch Vehicle: Minotaur V; 
Mission Duration: 180 days; 
Requirement derived from: National Research Council. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: In-house development; 
Type of Contract: N/A; 
Date of Award: N/A; 
Initial Value of Contract: N/A; 
Current Value: N/A. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost:* 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $262.9 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $262.9 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $79.5 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $79.5 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $168.2 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $175.8 million; 
Change: 4.5%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $15.2 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $7.7 million; 
Change: -49.3%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: November 2013; 
Latest Jan 2012: November 2013; 
Change: 0 months. 

* This estimate does not include the LLCD instrument which is being 
funded by the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at 
a cost of approximately $65 million. 

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission 
objective is to determine the global density, composition, and time 
variability of the lunar atmosphere. LADEE’s measurements will 
determine the size, charge, and spatial distribution of 
electrostatically transported dust grains. Additionally, LADEE will 
carry an optical laser communications demonstrator that will test high-
bandwidth communication from lunar orbit. 

Project Summary: 

The LADEE project did not pass its recent system integration review 
and a second review will be required for the project to move forward. 
The LADEE project is working toward an internal launch date of May 
2013, six months earlier than its baseline launch date. The May 2013 
launch is at risk because development of the Lunar Laser 
Communications Demonstration has fallen behind. The LADEE project has 
also experienced delays due to a bid protest of the Minotaur V launch 
vehicle selection in 2009. As a result, analysis of the launch 
environment was also delayed. When that analysis was performed, it 
showed the need for modifications to the spacecraft to withstand the 
loads produced by the launch vehicle. 

Project Update: 

The project did not pass its system integration review (SIR) in 
November 2011 largely, according to a senior NASA official, because of 
a lack of experience developing test and integration procedures within 
the project and at Ames Research Center and that the review was held 
earlier than is typical for other projects. The official stated that 
the impact of the SIR failure on the project’s cost and schedule are 
not clear at this time; however, additional manpower will be needed to 
address the test and integration issues, and a second systems 
integration review in early 2012 is required for the project to move 
forward. 

Technology Issues: 

NASA will fly the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) as a 
ride along technology demonstration on the LADEE mission. LLCD is 
being developed by the Human Exploration and Operations Mission 
Directorate at a cost of approximately $65 million—an additional cost 
not included in the LADEE life-cycle cost estimate. The project 
maintains that LADEE will launch with or without the LLCD, but the 
agency does have a strong desire to launch with the LLCD. Development 
of the LLCD has fallen behind, threatening the project’s internal 
management launch date in May 2013. As a result, a partner agency has 
agreed to pay for additional work on the LLCD, including providing 
funding for the development of an engineering model to begin testing. 
The project reported that the engineering model is being used for 
early integration testing to reduce risk. The project anticipates the 
LLCD will complete integration on schedule. 

Launch Issues: 

LADEE will be the first NASA mission to be launched on a Minotaur V, 
which was procured under an Air Force contract. NASA has a reduced 
level of oversight and control with the Minotaur V because it does not 
have to be certified for use by NASA projects since the Air Force is 
responsible for providing launch service mission success oversight for 
LADEE. Furthermore, though GAO denied the protest, the filing of a bid 
protest regarding the selection of the Minotaur V delayed the project’
s coupled loads analysis to determine the launch environment of the 
Minotaur V that LADEE’s design will need to accommodate. Project 
officials stated that, generally, a project can utilize the coupled 
loads analysis data from previous project launches. Because LADEE is 
the first mission to launch on a Minotaur V, there was no previous 
loads analysis data available to facilitate design efforts. Project 
officials told us that when they received the loads analysis data and 
ran a new analysis for LADEE, it showed insufficient strength margins 
and the project had to redesign portions of the spacecraft. Structural 
manufacturing of the spacecraft to meet the coupled loads data was a 
concern and project officials said this effort used a significant 
amount of fiscal year 2011 reserves to complete. The project reports 
that the flight structure design and manufacturing has been completed 
and the flight structure was delivered to Ames in December 2011. 

Design Issues: 

The LADEE project continues to monitor the mass of its instruments and 
the spacecraft’s components to ensure that it remains within the 
bounds of the launch vehicle margins. The project was below the Ames 
Research Center requirement of 15 percent approaching the critical 
design review, but has since remained above the required mass margin. 
Mass is a particular concern for the LADEE project because the mission 
will be launched at its maximum performance and maximum fuel levels, 
unlike other missions that may not need this level of performance and 
are able to trade fuel mass for spacecraft mass. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: 

According to project officials, they are concerned with the number of 
quality assurance staff available at Ames Research Center, since LADEE 
is the first in-house space flight development project at that center. 
According to NASA officials, they have taken steps to help mitigate 
this issue by sending staff from Goddard Space Flight Center, Glenn 
Research Center, and Kennedy Space Center to supplement the staff at 
Ames. 

Project Office Comments: 

The LADEE project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Magnetospheric Multiscale: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: MMS Project Office 
(artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

05/02: Formulation start; 
05/09: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

06/09: Project confirmation; 
08/10: Critical design review; 
12/11: GAO review; 
03/15: Launch readiness date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Funding Issues; 
* Contractor Issues; 
* Design Issues; 
* Part Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Development Partner Issues; 
* Technology Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
International Partners: Austria, France, Japan, Sweden; 
Projected Launch Date: March 2015; 
Launch Location: Cape Canaveral AFS, FL; 
Launch Vehicle: Atlas V; 
Mission Duration: 2 years; 
Requirement derived from: Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey, 2003. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Southwest Research Institute; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Fixed Fee; 
Date of Award: April 2003; 
Initial Value of Contract: $225 million; 
Current Value: $225 million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $1082.7 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $1082.6 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $173.0 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $172.9 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $857.4 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $857.3 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $52.3 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $52.4 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: March 2015; 
Latest Jan 2012: March 2015; 
Change: 0 months. 

The Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) is made up of four identically 
instrumented spacecraft. The mission will use the Earth’s 
magnetosphere as a laboratory to study the microphysics of magnetic 
reconnection, energetic particle acceleration, and turbulence. 
Magnetic reconnection is the primary process by which energy is 
transferred from solar wind to Earth’s magnetosphere and is the 
physical process determining the size of a space weather storm. The 
four spacecraft will fly in a pyramid formation, adjustable over a 
range of 10 to 400 kilometers. The data from MMS will be used as a 
basis for predictive models of space weather in support of exploration. 

Project Summary: 

The MMS project is working toward an internal management launch date 
of August 2014, which would allow the mission to improve its 
opportunities to conduct science. To meet this earlier launch date, 
the project used much of its project-held cost reserves and it plans 
to receive an additional $35 million from NASA headquarters for fiscal 
years 2011 through 2013. Currently, the project is tracking risks 
related to the Fast Plasma Investigation (FPI) instrument. Parts 
issues have depleted reserves held for development of the FPI and 
forced the project to modify its system level integration and test 
schedule. The project is also reported problems with the design of a 
sensor that may not survive the launch environment, potentially 
leading to the loss of data. 

Project Update: 

Funding Issues: 

Project officials stated that the MMS project is working toward an 
internal management launch readiness date of August 2014, which is 7 
months earlier than the project’s baseline launch date of March 2015. 
Project officials reported, however, that the launch manifest is 
currently oversubscribed in the 2014 time frame. Project officials 
said that the earlier date would allow the mission a window to enter 
the magnetosphere and improve the project’s opportunities to conduct 
scientific measurements. The project also reported that late 
deliveries of some instruments have caused cost overruns, and as a 
result, the project does not have the budget to delay the launch to 
March 2015 without additional funding from the Science Mission 
Directorate. To address technical and production problems, the project 
used much of its project-held cost reserves and plans to receive an 
additional $35 million from NASA headquarters for fiscal years 2011 
through 2013. As of October 2011, the project was holding a reserve 
posture of approximately 16 percent of the cost remaining, well below 
the 25 percent required by Goddard Space Flight Center standards, but 
which project officials consider adequate. Project officials stated 
that they have options to help mitigate any additional cost overruns. 
For example, project officials said they could accept more project 
risk by reducing testing, removing some of the instruments on each 
observatory, or removing one of the four spacecraft. 

Contractor Issues: 

The MMS project is tracking risks related to the development of the 
Fast Plasma Investigation (FPI) instrument. As of October 2011, the 
project reported that the FPI instrument contractor had no remaining 
reserves for this instrument. Recent detailed cost estimates indicate 
that the cost to complete its development will exceed the available 
budget by $15.9 million. According to project officials, the FPI 
contractor was slow to bring on mechanical designers because it could 
not find qualified personnel, contributing to delays in developing 
mechanical drawings and delivering hardware. The project reported that 
schedule slips in the FPI development have forced the project to 
modify its system level integration and test schedule to accept a 
later delivery of this instrument. For example, project officials said 
that they can now accept the FPI up to a year later than originally 
planned and meet the August 2014 launch date due to modifying the 
schedule. 

Design Issues: 

MMS project officials reported problems with the sensor in the 
accelerometer, a device to measure acceleration, which may not survive 
the launch environment or the shock when the spacecraft separates from 
the launch vehicle. In addition, the project reported that shifts in 
the alignment of the sensor during launch or separation may result in 
a loss of precision and efficiency in orbital maneuvers. Shock testing 
has indicated that isolation of the accelerometer to absorb the shock 
is required and the vendor recently made changes to the engineering 
model to accommodate isolators. 

Parts Issues: 

The MMS project has experienced various electrical, electronic, and 
electromechanical (EEE) parts issues and electronic circuit board 
fabrication issues that have already required more than $600,000 to 
address. Most of this amount was used on an issue with the 
optocoupler, used in high voltage power supplies on a couple of the 
instruments, that project officials said delayed delivery of the FPI 
to the instrument suite by about 2 months at a cost of about $500,000. 
The octocoupler problem was resolved by a combination of design and 
process manufacturing changes made by the parts vendor, such as using 
a different substance with better thermal properties in the 
octocoupler. 

Project Office Comments: 

The MMS project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that the problems with EEE parts and external 
manufacturing supply chain for electronic circuit boards have been 
surmounted and the project is now engaged in the production of the 
multiple copies of flight instruments and spacecraft subassemblies 
required for the mission. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: NASA GSFC MAVEN Project 
Office (artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

09/08: Formulation start; 
07/10: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

10/10: Project confirmation; 
07/11: Critical design review; 
12/11: GAO review; 
11/13: Launch readiness date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Design Issues; 
* Parts Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Launch Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
International Partner: Institute of Research for Astrophysics and 
Planetology, Toulouse, France; 
Projected Launch Date: November 18, 2013; 
Launch Location: Cape Canaveral AFS, FL; 
Launch Vehicle: Atlas V; 
Mission Duration: 10 months of travel, 1 year of operations; 
Requirement derived from: Competitively selected in 2008 under the 
Mars Scout 2006 Announcement of Opportunity. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Lockheed Martin; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Award Fee; 
Date of Award: April 2009; 
Initial Value of Contract: $237 million; 
Current Value: $247 million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2011: $671.2 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $671.2 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2011: $63.8 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $63.9 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2011: $567.2 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $567.2 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2011: $40.1 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $40.1 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2011: November 2013; 
Latest Jan 2012: November 2013; 
Change: 0 months. 

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission, a robotic 
orbiter mission, will provide a comprehensive picture of the Mars 
upper atmosphere, ionosphere, solar energetic drivers, and atmospheric 
losses. MAVEN will deliver comprehensive answers to long-standing 
questions regarding the loss of Mars’ atmosphere, climate history, 
liquid water, and habitability. MAVEN will provide the first direct 
measurements ever taken to address key scientific questions about Mars’
evolution. 

Project Summary: 

MAVEN is currently on target to meet its cost and schedule commitments 
with adequate cost and schedule reserves. The project held its CDR in 
July 2011 and the Standing Review Board rated the project successful 
in seven of nine categories. The remaining two categories-—design and 
schedule-—were assessed as mostly successful. The review board rated 
the design drawings as mostly successful because the project did not 
meet its recommended 80 percent of design drawings complete at CDR. 
Project officials stated that MAVEN is behind schedule in software 
development due to delays transitioning staff from two NASA projects 
that launched in late summer 2011. 

Project Update: 

The MAVEN project is currently on target to meet its cost and schedule 
commitments with adequate cost and schedule reserves. The project is 
currently carrying a higher level of cost and schedule reserves for a 
project in Phase C than is normally required by Goddard Space Flight 
Center standards. Meeting the project’s launch window that begins in 
November 2013 is critical because MAVEN is a planetary mission and 
would incur a 26-month delay if the November/December 2013 launch 
window is missed. Project officials attributed the project’s success 
thus far to factors including having the right people on the project, 
making tough decisions to prevent requirements creep, having the 
proper level of funding reserves, and the use of heritage technology. 

Design Issues: 

The MAVEN project held its mission critical design review (CDR) as 
scheduled in July 2011. The project was rated successful on seven out 
of the nine categories reviewed by the Standing Review Board, and 
mostly successful on two other categories—design and schedule. The 
board rated MAVEN separately on design maturity indicators, and rated 
the design drawings as mostly successful because the project did not 
meet their recommended 80 percent of design drawings complete at CDR. 
We calculated that only 49 percent of the project’s current expected 
engineering drawings were releasable at CDR, which is below GAO’s best 
practices metric of having 90 percent of engineering drawings 
releasable at CDR. 

Two of the top project-reported design risks are the High Efficiency 
Power Supply (HEPS) Card, and the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass 
Spectrometer (NGIMS). Last year, project officials were concerned with 
the high probability of failure of the HEPS, which is MAVEN’s power 
supply system, particularly because it represents a single-point 
failure. Rather than rework the card, the project obtained a spare 
HEPS card from NASA’s Juno project to conduct early evaluation, and 
will additionally conduct inspections and testing. This risk will 
remain open as the contractor tests and inspects the new card. The 
project also completed a plan to calibrate the NGIMS during on-orbit 
operations to address a risk that winds in Mars’ atmosphere could 
degrade the science data collected by the instrument. Another risk 
that project officials stated has been trending downward is the 
spacecraft launch mass growth. Project officials stated that this risk 
has been downgraded as the current mass margin has been holding 
constant, slightly above the 15 percent margin requirement. 

Parts Issues: 

Project Officials reported that an increase in the price for 
electrical, electronic, and electromechanical parts has produced 
increases industry-wide, and that parts cost increases are a 
significant element of the $840,000 projected growth in the cost of 
the Langmuir Probes and Waves instrument. In addition, the project has 
identified that the spacecraft propulsion system may affect 
integration and test because some parts for the system, including the 
filters, have long lead times from order to delivery. According to 
project officials, however, the project currently has adequately 
funded schedule margin and slack to account for this issue. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: 

Project officials stated that MAVEN is behind schedule in flight 
software development due to delays in transitioning contractor staff 
from the Juno and Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory projects 
that launched in August and September of 2011, respectively. Project 
officials stated that they have ramped up the software development 
staff above the planned levels to make up for previous understaffing 
and the development is tracking to the recovery plan with no schedule 
delay. 

Project Office Comments: 

The MAVEN project office provided technical comments to a draft of 
this assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project 
officials also commented that the project is making steady progress on 
releasing drawings, the HEPS and NGIMS design concerns, and the 
software development with personnel from recently launched missions. 
They added that the project is on target to conduct the System 
Integration Review next summer. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Mars Science Laboratory: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech 
(artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

11/03: Formulation start; 
06/06: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

08/06: Project confirmation; 
06/07: Critical design review; 
11/26/11: Launch date; 
12/11: GAO review. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Design Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Technology Maturity; 
* Complexity of Heritage Technology; 
* Parts Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Jet Propulsion Lab; 
Partners: U.S. Department of Energy, Centre Nationale d’Etude Spatiale 
(France), Russian Federal Space Agency, Centro de Astrobiologia 
(Spain), Canadian Space Agency; 
Launch Date: November 26, 2011; 
Launch Location: Cape Canaveral AFS, FL; 
Launch Vehicle: Atlas V; 
Mission Duration: 1 year of travel, 2 years of operations; 
Requirement derived from: Part of the Mars Exploration program in 
response to NASA’s Strategic Goals. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: In-house development; 
Type of Contract: N/A; 
Date of Award: N/A; 
Initial Value of Contract: N/A; 
Current Value: N/A. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $2394.2 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $2523.3 million; 
Change: 5.4%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $515.5 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $515.5 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost*: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $1719.9 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $1781.4 million; 
Change: 3.6%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $158.8 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $226.5 million; 
Change: %. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: November 2011; 
Latest Jan 2012: November 2011; 
Change: 0 months. 

* Represents an 84% growth in development costs since the original 
baseline of $968.6 established in fiscal year 2008. 

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)—-also known by the name of its 
rover, Curiosity-—is part of the Mars Exploration Program (MEP), which 
seeks to understand whether Mars was, is, or can be a habitable world. 
To answer this question the MSL project will investigate how geologic, 
climatic, and other processes have worked to shape Mars and its 
environment over time, as well as how they interact today. The MSL 
will continue this systematic exploration by placing a mobile science 
laboratory on the Mars surface to assess a local site as a potential 
habitat for life, past or present. The MSL is considered one of NASA’s 
flagship projects and will be the most advanced rover yet sent to 
explore the surface of Mars. Curiosity is about twice as long and five 
times as heavy as NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and 
Opportunity, launched in 2003. 

Project Summary: 

The Mars Science Laboratory successfully launched on November 26, 
2011. The life cycle cost for the project has increased $881 million 
since its original baseline in 2008, which includes an 84 percent 
increase in development costs. The project launched with a risk that 
the rover’s sample analysis drill will short circuit that could cause 
interference with the avionics systems and limit drill operations. In 
addition, the project did not complete all of the software for entry, 
descent, landing, and surface activities, which the project plans to 
complete during the spacecraft’s cruise to Mars. Similarly, the 
project also plans to close out a number of Problem/Failure Reports 
identified during development and testing, during the cruise phase. 

Project Update: 

MSL successfully launched on November 26, 2011, and is currently en 
route to Mars, where it is scheduled to land in August 2012. Since the 
original project baseline in 2008, the life-cycle cost for the project 
has increased by over $881 million—including an 84 percent increase in 
development costs—and the launch was delayed from September 2009 until 
November 2011 since launch windows for Mars missions are optimally 
aligned every 26 months. These cost and schedule overruns were driven 
by design and technical problems. 

Design Issues: 

Design issues leading up to the project’s launch caused delays in 
testing and continues to threaten the project’s operations. For 
example, problems with the sample analysis drill, which collects 
samples from the Martian rocks, were discovered late in the testing 
and verification of the rover and subsequently caused a rework of 
internal rover components, delaying the rover’s test schedule by 5 
weeks. To mitigate this and other problems, the project increased its 
workforce, which exhausted the project-held cost reserves. While these 
issues with the sample analysis drill were addressed in the redesign, 
the project identified additional issues with the drill after the 
rover had been delivered to Kennedy Space Center for launch 
processing. The project identified a risk that the sample analysis 
drill will short circuit to the drill framework—or chassis—when in 
percussion mode, causing interference from drilling operations that 
can affect the avionics systems. The project made modifications to the 
rover that will allow it to detect the short before the avionics 
hardware is damaged. The project is also able to use the drill in a 
rotary only mode. This issue could limit the operations of the drill 
and the project may have to process only softer rock samples, which 
may significantly increase the risk of not accomplishing mission 
science objectives. 

The project has additional concerns regarding the spacecraft’s 
software that enable its functionality once it arrives at the landing 
site. Project officials stated that the basic software for landing and 
traversing exists, but it needs to be upgraded in order to achieve 
full capability. The project plans to release updates and test its 
flight software for entry, descent, and landing (EDL) and software for 
surface operations during the spacecraft’s 9-month cruise phase to 
Mars. The project reported that although this work has slipped into 
the operations phase after launch, the project believes it has 
adequate personnel and financial resources to successfully complete 
EDL, enter surface operations, and complete the mission. NASA 
headquarters officials, however, stressed the significant amount of 
work remaining in this area, disruption of which, according to these 
officials, could impact the project’s ability to land safely on Mars. 
In January 2012, NASA reported that operations costs will increase by 
almost $68 million, including $8.7 million carried forward from the 
development phase and an additional $59 million to ensure achievement 
of mission success criteria and accommodate development of surface 
mobility flight software. 

The project experienced a large number of Problem/Failure Reports 
(PFR) identified during the development and testing of the rover. For 
example, the project had over 1,200 PFRs open in early 2011. In June 
2011, the NASA Inspector General reported that it found that project 
managers did not consistently identify and assess the risks associated 
with the PFRs and, as a result, closing the large number of open PFRs 
became a point of emphasis for the project during 2011. Project 
officials said they made it a priority to close those PFRs related to 
flight and launch operations and then concentrate on those related to 
software. The project plans to close multiple unresolved software PFRs 
during the spacecraft’s cruise phase. As of October 2011, the project 
had 392 PFRs still open, although many of those were in review or 
awaiting signature. 

Project Office Comments: 

The MSL project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that to date all has gone well with the cruise 
spacecraft and rover checkout, and that Curiosity is on track for 
entry, descent, and landing on the Martian surface in 2012. 

[End of fact sheet] 

NPOESS Preparatory Project: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: Bell Aerospace. 

Formulation: 

11/98: Formulation start; 
01/03: Preliminary design review; 
08/03: Critical design review. 

Implementation: 

11/03: Project confirmation; 
10/28/11: Launch date; 
12/11: GAO review. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Development Partner Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Technology Maturity; 
* Complexity of Heritage Technology; 
* Design Stability; 
* Launch Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
Partner: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Air 
Force; 
Launch Date: October 28, 2011; 
Launch Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA; 
Launch Vehicle: Delta II; 
Mission Duration: 5 years; 
Requirement derived from: Continuation of Earth Observing System 
Missions. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Award Fee; 
Date of Award: December 2000; 
Initial Value of Contract: $241.1 million; 
Current Value: $196.9 million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: $672.8 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $851.4 million; 
Change: 26.6%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: $47.3 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $47.1 million; 
Change: -0.4%. 

Development Cost*: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: $593.0 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $767.9 million; 
Change: 29.6%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: $32.5 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $36.4 million; 
Change: 12.0%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: April 2008; 
Latest Jan 2012: November 2010; 
Change: 42 months. 

* Represents a 50% growth in development costs since the original 
baseline of $513 million established in fiscal year 2004. 

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System 
(NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) is a joint mission with the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United 
States Air Force. The satellite has five instruments and will measure 
ozone, atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, land and ocean 
biological productivity, Earth radiation, and cloud and aerosol 
properties. 

Project Summary: 

NPP launched in October 2011, and will provide data for climate 
research and weather prediction models until future NOAA and DOD 
satellites are launched and operational. Since 2007, the project 
experienced almost $175 million in development cost growth and a 42-
month launch readiness delay. NPP launched with residual risks on 
instruments, and work remaining to complete its ground system. Project 
officials stated that they will continue to perform risk reduction on 
the ground system and gradually transition to operations in late 2012. 

Project Update: 

INPP successfully launched on October 28, 2011. Originally conceived 
as a risk reduction mission for the NPOESS mission, NPP will now 
function as an operational satellite and provide data to be used by 
the scientific community for studying long-term climate patterns and 
improving short-term weather forecasts until the launch and operation 
of future NOAA satellites. As launched, the project was delayed by 42 
months and its development costs were almost 37 percent over the 
project’s 2007 baseline; this represents a 58 percent growth in 
development costs from the project’s original 2004 baseline. We have 
previously reported that NPP project officials attributed cost and 
schedule overruns to development partner challenges and a lack of 
central authority between the three NPOESS agencies. In February 2010, 
the White House announced plans to restructure the NPOESS program. 
Since that time two new programs were initiated: the NASA-NOAA Joint 
Polar Satellite System (JPSS) and the DOD Defense Weather Satellite 
System (DWSS). However, DWSS was subsequently terminated in fiscal 
year 2012. As part of the NPOESS restructuring, management of the 
ground system contracts was transferred to the NASA-NOAA JPSS project 
office. 

Development Partner Issues: 

Project officials stated that one of the most significant obstacles 
they had to overcome for an October 2011 launch was the development of 
the ground system network previously overseen and under resourced by 
the Integrated Program Office (IPO), a joint U.S. Air Force and NOAA 
program office that managed the NPOESS program. Project officials 
stated that the ground system network had a lack of resources provided 
by the IPO when its instruments were behind schedule. Significant work 
was performed to get the ground system into a launch ready 
configuration including transferring management of the contracts from 
the Air Force to the JPSS project office and project officials said 
they performed major software rebuilds. Work on the ground system to 
support NPP is not complete. In order to be ready for launch, project 
officials said they focused on parts of ground system development that 
were absolute priorities for a launch ready configuration. Project 
officials stated that after launch, the project will continue to work 
on the ground system to perform risk reduction and will gradually 
transition to operations beginning in late 2012. The ground systems 
team will also continue to evolve the grounds systems to eventually 
support the JPSS satellites. JPSS is currently planning to launch two 
satellites, one in 2016 and the other in 2021. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: 

The project launched with residual risk on three partner-provided 
instruments. NPP project officials stated they lack confidence in the 
processes used by the IPO for the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer 
Suite, the Cross-track Infrared Sounder, and the Ozone Mapper Profiler 
Suite instruments. Project officials stated that it is possible that 
the instruments will not last for the full 5 years of mission 
duration. We testified in September 2011 that early expiration of the 
partner-provided instruments would result in a data gap in data 
coverage, because the first JPSS satellite is not scheduled to launch 
until 2016. 

Project Office Comments: 

The NPP project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. NASA officials 
added that NPP and the NPP ground system have captured, processed, and 
distributed over 1 million products since launch and will continue 
efforts to activate, commission, and calibrate the remaining 
instruments. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory (artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

03/10: Formulation start; 
08/10: Critical design review. 

Implementation: 

09/10: Project confirmation; 
12/11: GAO review; 
02/13: Launch readiness date; 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Launch Issues; 
* Funding Issues; 
* Parts Issues; 
* Design Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Jet Propulsion Laboratory; 
International Partner: None; 
Projected Launch Date: February 2013; 
Launch Location: Vandenberg AFB, CA; 
Launch Vehicle: To be determined; 
Mission Duration: 2 years; 
Requirement derived from: Earth System Science Pathfinder Announcement 
of Opportunity 3. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Orbital Science Corporation; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Fixed Fee/Incentive Fee; 
Date of Award: May 2010; 
Initial Value of Contract: $48 Million; 
Current Value: $48 Million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $349.9 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $349.9 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $60.9 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $60.9 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 20108: $249.0 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $249.0 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $40.0 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $40.0 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Launch Schedule*: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: February 2013; 
Latest Jan 2012: February 2013; 
Change: 0 months. 

* The project’s cost and schedule are currently under review pending 
resolution of launch vehicle issues. 

NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) is designed to enable 
more reliable predictions of climate change and is based on the 
original OCO mission that failed to reach orbit in 2009. It will make 
precise, time-dependent global measurements of atmospheric carbon 
dioxide. These measurements will be combined with data from a ground-
based network to provide scientists with the information needed to 
better understand the processes that regulate atmospheric carbon 
dioxide and its role in the carbon cycle. NASA expects enhanced 
understanding of the carbon cycle will improve predictions of future 
atmospheric carbon dioxide increases and the potential impact on the 
climate. 

Project Summary: 

NASA had selected the Taurus XL launch vehicle for OCO-2, the same 
vehicle used for the OCO and Glory missions. After the failure of the 
Taurus XL to place either spacecraft into orbit, NASA stopped payment 
for the Taurus XL and is reevaluating launch vehicle options for OCO-
2. Prior to the Glory failure, the project appeared to be on schedule, 
but launch vehicle uncertainties will delay the OCO-2 launch date. 
Despite being a rebuild of the original OCO mission, costs have 
increased due to parts obsolescence, purchase of spares, launch 
vehicle cost increase, and inflation. Similar to the OCO mission, the 
project is experiencing an issue with spectrometer motion. 

Project Update: 

Launch Vehicle Issues: 

OCO-2 has been designed to launch on a Taurus XL, the same launch 
vehicle as was used for OCO; however, Taurus XL has failed to place 
both the OCO and Glory missions into orbit. As a result, the current 
launch vehicle for OCO-2 is “to be determined” and work under the 
Taurus XL task order has been suspended. The project reports that the 
schedule for OCO-2 has already been adversely affected as there are no 
viable launch vehicle alternatives that preserve the February 2013 
launch date. The project expects a major replanning effort will be 
necessary and the technical and cost implications are unknown. 
Potential alternative launch vehicles currently available under the 
NASA Launch Services-II contract for OCO-2 include the Falcon 9 and 
the Delta II. According to NASA launch services officials, it is 
likely the earliest OCO-2 could be launched would be at least 2 years 
from the selection of an alternate launch vehicle. In January 2012, 
NASA reported that the project’s life cycle cost estimate and schedule 
were under review pending resolution of these launch vehicle issues. 

Funding Issues: 

In December 2008, OCO’s life-cycle cost estimate was $273.1 million, 
compared to OCO-2’s 2010 baseline estimate of $349.9 million. Project 
officials attributed the higher life-cycle cost estimate for OCO-2 due 
to an increase in reserves—or unallocated future expenses—held by the 
Science Mission Directorate, an increase of over $20 million for the 
Taurus XL launch vehicle, an increase of $25 million due to inflation, 
and the need for $10 million to procure a new cryocooler. The life-
cycle cost for OCO-2 may increase once a launch vehicle decision is 
made since some of the alternatives are more expensive than that of 
the Taurus XL. In addition, a launch delay may necessitate retention 
of personnel for the extended period, which could be costly. 

Parts Issues: 

The project is making every effort to duplicate the original OCO 
design using identical hardware, drawings, documents, procedures, and 
software wherever possible and practical in order to produce OCO-2 
with minimum cost, schedule, and technical risk. However, project 
officials stated that there were no engineering models for many of the 
OCO components and the original components were lost when OCO failed 
to reach orbit. The OCO-2 project will procure a full set of spares to 
help avoid problems with further parts obsolescence during the 
development and testing of flight hardware. The project has 
encountered difficulties with particular components. For example, OCO-
2 had to redesign the flight computer to accept a new memory chip in 
order to avoid converting the entire spacecraft for a new flight 
computer. The suppliers of OCO’s X-band and S-band receivers went out 
of business and ceased production, respectively, and these will have 
to be replaced or redesigned. The project has also had to use 2 months 
of schedule reserve to remove and reapply metallic plating that was 
flaking off after improper application by a subcontractor. 

Design Issues: 

OCO-2 includes a single instrument, the three-channel grating 
spectrometer, based on heritage technology from OCO. The instrument on 
OCO-2 had a spectrometer stability issue similar to that experienced 
on OCO, which may reduce the amount of usable data that the instrument 
is able to collect. The project thought that it had fixed the problem 
on OCO after a successful test, but it has re-emerged on OCO-2. 
Project officials report that a stabilizer was added to each of the 
three spectrometer channels to mitigate further motion. They added 
that test results are promising; however, final verification is 
pending. Due to its heritage design, the project had released 95 
percent of its engineering drawings at the critical design review. 

Project Office Comments: 

The OCO-2 project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that the project’s philosophy to take advantage of 
existing OCO designs, plans, and procedures has served to reduce risk 
for the most part. They added that there have been instances where 
contracting with the same vendor and applying the same processes 
followed on OCO prevented planned results from being achieved, and 
that a “build-to-print” approach is no guarantee of initial quality 
and may require extensive rework. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: Lockheed Martin Space 
Systems Corporation. 

Formulation: 

11/11: Formulation start; 
12/11: GAO review; 
7/13/-8/13: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

10/13/-12/13: Project confirmation; 
1/15-3/15: Critical design review. 
2021: Launch readiness date. 

Project Challenges: 
* Funding Issues; 
* Design Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Johnson Space Center; 
Partner: None; 
Projected First Non-Crew Launch Date: 2017; 
Projected First Crew Launch Date: 2021; 
Launch Location: Kennedy Space Center, FL; 
Launch Vehicle: Space Launch System; 
Mission Duration: Varied based on destination; 
Requirement derived from: NASA Authorization Act of 2010. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Lockheed Martin; 
Type of Contract: N/A; 
Date of Award: N/A; 
Initial Value of Contract: N/A; 
Current Value: N/A. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions. 

Preliminary estimate of Project Life Cycle Cost*: 

Latest Jan 2012: Not available. 

* The project has not yet reached the point in the acquisition life 
cycle where a preliminary life-cycle cost estimate would normally be 
developed. 

Launch Schedule: 
2017 First non-crew; 
2021: First crew. 

NASA’s Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) is a crew vehicle being 
developed to conduct in-space operations beyond low Earth orbit. The 
current design for MPCV consists of a crew module, service module, and 
launch abort system. The MPCV spacecraft will provide for safe crew 
transportation and habitability during the ascent, in?space operations 
and entry, descent, and landing mission phases. MPCV is planned to 
eventually launch atop NASA’s Space Launch System to conduct 
exploration missions beyond low earth orbit and can be utilized to 
service the International Space Station (ISS) if necessary. 

Project Summary: 

The MPCV program will continue to develop systems of the former Orion 
project. NASA has returned MPCV to Phase A, even though the program 
continues to conduct activities normally performed later in 
formulation. Program officials stated that, given budget constraints, 
the first MPCV non-crewed flight is scheduled for 2017 and the first 
crewed flight for 2021. An independent assessment of initial budget 
estimates for MPCV found the estimates reasonable for near-term 
planning, but inadequate for the development of a program baseline and 
that program reserves are insufficient. Currently, 15 missions are 
being considered for MPCV, and as such the program currently does not 
have a specific mission to guide its design. The program office 
reports that each of the 15 missions could be accomplished using the 
core MPCV capabilities. 

Project Update: 

The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 directed NASA to develop an MPCV 
that will continue to advance the development of the human safety 
features, designs, and systems of the former Orion project. To 
transition from Orion to MPCV, NASA has traced the current 
requirements for MPCV to the former Orion plan and contracts to ensure 
that the program is meeting requirements of the Authorization Act and 
utilizing previous contracts to the extent practicable. Although NASA 
reported spending $4.9 billion through November 2010 on Orion, which 
was in Phase B, NASA has placed MPCV in the concept and technology 
development phase of formulation—Phase A. According to NASA officials, 
this placement was necessary due to continued work on refining budget 
estimations and aligning MPCV requirements with the other associated 
and newly created programs—the Space Launch System (SLS) and the 21st 
Century Ground System. MPCV, however, is continuing development work 
and testing to demonstrate key technologies started during the former 
Orion project that, according to program officials, is normally 
conducted in later phases of development. For example, program 
officials stated that water landing tests were conducted on the crew 
module in July 2011, and acoustic and vibration tests of the capsule 
were conducted in September 2011. 

Funding issues: 

NASA officials stated that the budget for the program is more 
constrained than was planned for Orion; therefore, the first non-
crewed flight is not scheduled until 2017 and the first crewed flight 
in 2021, as compared to initial operational capability planned for 
2015 under Orion. An independent assessment of initial budget 
estimates for the MPCV found the estimates reasonable for short-term 
planning, but inadequate for the development of a program baseline. 
Further, given that NASA had not conducted a risk analysis, the report 
stated that program reserves are insufficient. According to NASA 
officials, the agency is conducting a comprehensive review in 
preparation for the President’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal in 
February 2012, but will not be able to provide a baseline cost 
estimate for MPCV until February 2013 when NASA expects to have 
greater clarity of its alignment to the associated programs.
Program officials said NASA modified the former Orion prime contract 
with Lockheed Martin to ensure that for MPCV, spacecraft requirements 
were phased to match the anticipated budget allocation. The program 
intends to include an early test flight—designated Exploration Flight 
Test 1—scheduled for early 2014. Program officials reported this test 
flight should allow them to address 10 out of 13 top risks related to 
loss of crew, such as the capability of the heat shield. To conduct 
this test, Lockheed Martin will need to acquire a launch vehicle since 
SLS will not be available. NASA is negotiating with Lockheed Martin to 
determine how the additional test-unique costs will be accommodated in 
the existing contract. 

Design Issues: 

The program does not have a specific mission to guide its design. NASA 
is currently considering 15 potential missions, ranging from non-
International Space Station (ISS) low earth orbit utilizations, to 
lunar surface operations, to landing on Mars. NASA officials did not 
know when the missions MPCV will conduct will be determined, as they 
stated these decisions are typically made by the Presidential 
Administration and Office of Management and Budget. As MPCV is 
intended to be a multipurpose vehicle, the program office reports that 
each of the 15 missions could be accomplished using the core MPCV 
capabilities. Program officials said one area of lower priority work 
being deferred is the acquisition of components for MPCV needed to 
enable it to support ISS. They said, however, that supporting ISS is 
being taken into consideration during design of MPCV and integrating 
these capabilities to the spacecraft would take approximately 2 years, 
should the need arise. 

Project Office Comments: 

The Orion MPCV program office provided technical comments to a draft 
of this assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Program 
officials also commented that the program is following the 2010 NASA 
Authorization Act and agency authorization to develop the spacecraft 
using existing contracts as applicable. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Radiation Belt Storm Probes: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: © 2010 The Johns 
Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory (artist depiction). All 
Rights Reserved. 

Formulation: 

09/06: Formulation start; 
10/08: Preliminary design review. 

Implementation: 

12/08: Project confirmation; 
12/09: Critical design review. 
12/11: GAO review; 
09/12: Launch readiness date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Design Issues; 
* Parts Issues; 
* Contractor Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
Partner: National Reconnaissance Office; 
Projected Launch Date: September 2012; 
Launch Location: Cape Canaveral AFS, FL; 
Launch Vehicle: Atlas V; 
Mission Duration: 2 years; 
Requirement derived from: Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey, 2003. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Fixed Fee; 
Date of Award: 2006; 
Initial Value of Contract: $435.5 million; 
Current Value: $502.4 million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $685.8 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $686.0 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $88.2 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $88.2 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $533.9 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $530.9 million; 
Change: -0.6%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: $63.7 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $66.9 million; 
Change: 5.0%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2009: May 2012; 
Latest Jan 2012: September 2012; 
Change: 3 months. 

The Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission will explore the Sun’s 
influence on the Earth and near-Earth space by studying the planet’s 
radiation belts at various scales of space and time. This insight into 
the physical dynamics of the Earth’s radiation belts will provide 
scientists with data to make predictions of changes in this little 
understood region of space. Understanding the radiation belt 
environment has practical applications in the areas of spacecraft 
system design, mission planning, spacecraft operations, and astronaut 
safety. The two spacecraft will measure the particles, magnetic and 
electric fields, and waves that fill geospace and provide new 
knowledge on the dynamics and extremes of the radiation belts. 

Project Summary: 

The RBSP project reported in July 2011 that it was approved for a 
replan that delays the launch readiness date 3 months to September 
2012 because of conflicting launch schedules of other missions. 
However, the project had low schedule and cost reserves prior to the 
replan due to late delivery of instruments. In particular, 
manufacturer revisions to the design of a component for the Helium-
Oxygen Proton-Electron (HOPE) instrument caused a slip in schedule 
because the component was not ready to be incorporated into the 
instrument. In addition, a chiller unit failure during winter storms 
and facility shutdowns during recent forest fires at Los Alamos 
National Laboratory caused additional delays for the HOPE instrument. 

Project Update: 

In July 2011, the RBSP project reported it was approved for a replan 
that will delay the launch readiness date from May 2012 to September 
2012. According to project officials, the project will not exceed its 
current life-cycle cost estimate due to this delay. Project officials 
said that the replan was determined necessary by NASA because of 
changes to the launch manifest caused by other missions, including 
some from the Department of Defense. The project manager stated that 
there will be some cost impact to keep personnel on the project 
longer, but that NASA will likely release headquarters’ reserves 
because such a delay was beyond the control of the project. The 
project reported that in April 2011, the schedule margin had burned 
down to 22 days prior to the announcement of the replan, even though 
the project had planned for 42 days of schedule reserve at that point. 
The program manager at the Applied Physics Laboratory also stated that 
there were actions, such as extended shifts, that could have been 
taken to maintain the May 2012 launch date within existing project 
reserves if the replan had not been implemented. 

Design/Parts Issues: 

RBSP project officials told us that they had to make adjustments to 
the integration and test schedule, such as adding more weekend shifts, 
to accommodate late deliveries of several instruments because of 
design and parts related issues. They added that having two 
spacecrafts on the mission allows for flexibility in the schedule to 
mitigate the effects of late instrument deliveries. In the spring of 
2011, the project had been experiencing low cost and schedule reserves 
mostly due to instrument delays, including one involving the high 
voltage optocoupler on the Helium-Oxygen-Proton-Electron (HOPE) 
instrument. The manufacturer made revisions to the optocoupler design 
and NASA reported that other projects experienced issues with similar 
parts. The project reported that the redesign will require new high-
voltage power supply boards for the new optocouplers, and those boards 
are estimated to cost approximately $900,000—an amount covered by the 
project’s reserves, according to project officials. The project 
proceeded with the delivery of the HOPE instrument while the new 
boards were being built with the new optocouplers. The project is 
awaiting the delivery of the new parts to integrate into the 
instrument, a process officials except to happen in March 2012. During 
part-level testing the project discovered a failure in the 
qualification unit of the Magnetic Electron Ion Spectrometer (MagEIS) 
instrument. The project reported that, as of August 2011, the failure 
analysis to date has been inconclusive, and the root cause is 
indeterminate. Project officials, however, believe the problem was 
caused by electro-static discharge during handling. As of August 2011, 
five of the eight MagEIS instruments were yet to be delivered. In 
addition, the project reported a delay in the delivery date of the 
transceiver subsystem to integration and test after the vendor 
reported problems with its filters during electrical testing. The 
project also experienced instrument delivery delays with the Electric 
Fields and Waves instrument after anomalies were detected during 
thermal vacuum testing. 

Contractor Issues: 

In addition to technical issues with the HOPE instrument, some of the 
delivery delays for the HOPE instrument were due to events outside the 
control of the project. Two separate events at the Los Alamos National 
Laboratory—a chiller unit failure during storms last winter and a 
facility closure during forest fires in 2011—caused about a 2-month 
delay for that instrument. During a design review for a Power System 
Electronics (PSE) box, the project also discovered that a vendor had 
made changes to how its regulators are used. Project officials 
reported that they had found out about the changes through an 
independent reviewer, not the vendor. As a result of the changes, the 
RBSP project reviewed all applications of the vendor’s regulators used 
for the RBSP project and determined it needed to make modifications to 
three flight components, including the PSE box. 

Project Office Comments: 

The RBSP project office provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Soil Moisture Active and Passive: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory (artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

09/08: Formulation start; 
10/11: Preliminary design review; 
12/11: GAO review. 

Implementation: 

05/12: Project confirmation; 
05/12: Critical design review. 
10/14-1/15: Launch readiness date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Launch Issues; 
* Funding Issues; 
* Technology Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Jet Propulsion Lab; 
Partner: None; 
Projected Launch Date: October 2014 – January 2015; 
Launch Location: TBD; 
Launch Vehicle: TBD; 
Mission Duration: 3 years; 
Requirement derived from: 2007 Earth Science Decadal Survey. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Fixed Fee; 
Date of Award: June 2009; 
Initial Value of Contract: $18.56 Million; 
Current Value: $27.50 Million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Preliminary estimate of Project Life Cycle Cost*: 

Latest: Jan. 2012: $872-926 million. 

Launch Schedule: 10/2014 – 01/2015. 

* This estimate is preliminary, as the project is in formulation and 
there is uncertainty regarding the costs associated with the design 
options being explored. NASA uses these estimates for planning 
purposes. 

NASA’s Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) is one of four first-
tier missions recommended by the National Research Council’s 2007 
Earth Science Decadal Survey. SMAP leverages previous Earth Science 
missions and is based on the soil moisture and freeze/thaw mission 
concept developed by an earlier mission known as Hydros. The SMAP 
mission will provide new information on global soil moisture and its 
freeze/thaw state enabling new advances in hydrospheric science and 
applications. The measures will improve understanding of regional and 
global water cycles, improve weather forecasts, flood and drought 
forecasts, and climate changes. 

Project Summary: 

SMAP held its preliminary design review 7 months late due to a delay 
in launch vehicle selection. The project is proceeding with the 
assumption it will use a Minotaur IV-plus launch vehicle; however, 
final launch vehicle selection is still pending. While SMAP is 
utilizing heritage technologies to reduce development risks, none of 
the technologies were mature or were planned to be matured at the 
preliminary design review. The project is working with the federal 
agencies regarding the potential for SMAP’s radar to interfere with 
air surveillance and Global Positioning System (GPS) frequencies. The 
project has submitted a mitigation plan to the Federal Aviation 
Administration (FAA) and initial tests indicate that the project does 
not cause interference. 

Project Update: 

Launch Issues/Funding Issues: 

The launch vehicle selection for the SMAP project did not occur at the 
project’s preliminary design review, which had already been delayed by 
7 months as a result of the launch vehicle issue. The project is 
proceeding with the assumption that it will launch on a Minotaur IV-
plus and is currently working with the Air Force and Orbital Sciences 
Corporation, the contractor for Minotaur, on a coupled loads analysis 
for the that vehicle to understand the environment for the spacecraft 
during launch. The final decision on selection of a launch vehicle for 
SMAP is pending the results of the Request for Launch Services 
Proposal that was released for industry comment in early 2012. If a 
different launch vehicle is selected, the project will likely 
experience cost increases since the vehicles offered under the current 
launch services contract would be significantly more expensive for the 
project than Minotaur. While continuing to design to accommodate 
multiple launch vehicles is possible, the project manager said that it 
limits design capabilities and can raise costs to the project. Issues 
surrounding the launch vehicle selection have resulted in NASA 
delaying the project’s confirmation review by six months until May 
2012 and increasing the lower limit of the project’s life-cycle cost 
range estimate by over $90 million. 

Technology Issues: 

The project held its mission preliminary design review in October 2011 
without maturing any of its critical or heritage technologies. The 
project has three heritage technologies—the radar, radiometer, and the 
reflector boom assembly—all of which have been used on other missions 
and will need to be adapted for use on the SMAP project. The project 
is tracking the radiometer as a risk since it requires additional 
filtering to lessen radio frequency interference. The project has 
identified the spectral filtering as a critical technology, but this 
technology was not mature at the mission preliminary design review. 
The project expects to qualify all of the technologies for use prior 
to the mission critical design review in May 2012. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: 

The project is working with the FAA and the National 
Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to acquire 
spectrum approval because there is the potential for SMAP’s radar to 
interfere with air surveillance and GPS frequencies. If the NTIA does 
not approve of the project’s mitigation plan, the result could be a 
loss of science measurements. The project mitigation plan is to use 
frequency hopping—or changing the frequency every 12 seconds—to 
prevent interference. According to NASA, initial tests indicate that 
this mitigation is effective to reduce potential interference to 
levels that have traditionally been acceptable to the FAA. The project 
has also had delays with flight software development due to flight 
software resources being constrained by other projects at the Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory. The project is currently developing a recovery 
plan to mitigate the impact of the delay. 

The project is working with the European Space Agency’s Soil Moisture 
and Ocean Salinity project as well as the Aquarius project to help 
develop a radio frequency interference map for SMAP. As the spacecraft 
orbits the earth, it will encounter radio frequency interference that 
varies by location and new sources of radio frequencies as the 
environment is not static. The radio frequency interference map will 
allow the project to select radio frequencies with less interference 
for gathering data depending on where the spacecraft is and what 
interference is expected in that area. 

Project Office Comments: 

The SMAP project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that SMAP has no technology issues since the project 
uses a test approach where formal qualification is performed on flight 
hardware. They added that engineering models are being developed for 
adapted designs. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Solar Probe Plus: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: © 2010 The Johns 
Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory (artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

11/09: Formulation start; 
12/11: GAO review; 
01/14: Preliminary design review; 

Implementation: 

03/15: Critical design review. 
07/18: Launch readiness date. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Launch Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
International Partner: None; 
Projected Launch Date: July 2018; 
Launch Location: Eastern Range; 
Launch Vehicle: TBD; 
Mission Duration: 7 years; 
Requirement derived from: Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey, 2003. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Aerospace Research Development & Engineering Support; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Award Fee; 
Date of Award: May 2010; 
Initial Value of Contract: $38.45 Million; 
Current Value: $52.58 Million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Preliminary estimate of Project Life Cycle Cost*: 

Latest: Jan. 2012: $1,233-$1,439 million. 

Launch Schedule: 07/2018. 

* This estimate is preliminary, as the project is in formulation and 
there is uncertainty regarding the costs associated with the design 
options being explored. NASA uses these estimates for planning 
purposes. 

Solar Probe Plus (SPP) will explore the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or 
corona, as it extends into space. The spacecraft will orbit the Sun 24 
times and its instruments will observe the generation and flow of 
solar wind from very close range. By observing the corona, where solar 
energetic particles are energized, there is potential to further 
science in terms of shedding light on two central issues of 
heliophysics: the origin and evolution of solar wind and why the sun’s 
outer atmosphere is so much hotter than the visible surface. In order 
to achieve its mission, parts of the spacecraft must be able to 
withstand temperatures exceeding 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit as well as 
endure blasts of extreme radiation. 

Project Summary: 

The Solar Probe Plus entered the preliminary design and technology 
completion phase of formulation in January 2012 with a preliminary 
life cycle cost range estimate of $1.233 billion to $1.439 billion. 
The project rescheduled key project reviews from May 2011 to November 
2011 to allow it to further define the science requirements and 
perform technical trades to choose the final spacecraft configuration. 
Chief risks to the project in terms of cost and schedule include 
developing a sunshield capable of protecting the instruments from the 
harsh near-Sun environment, developing a cooling system for the 
retractable solar array panels, and achieving the total launch energy 
necessary to launch the spacecraft toward the Sun. 

Project Update: 

The SPP project mission definition review (MDR) and system 
requirements review (SRR) were scheduled for May 2011, but were 
rescheduled for November 2011 to allow the project to further define 
the science requirements and perform technical trades to choose the 
final spacecraft configuration and submit preliminary cost and 
schedule data to NASA headquarters. Delay of these reviews has led to 
a eight-month slip to its agency-level review to approve the project 
to move into Phase B—-the preliminary design and technology completion 
phase—-until January 2012, when it reported a preliminary life cycle 
cost range estimate of $1.233 billion to $1.439 billion. 

Launch Issues: 

SPP project officials reported that they are designing the project to 
launch on the Atlas V, which is currently the only vehicle offered 
under the NASA launch services contract (NLS II) that can support the 
project’s launch energy. The other launch vehicles NASA has studied 
are the Delta IV Heavy and the Falcon Heavy. Although these vehicles 
are not currently offered under the NLS II contract, they are being 
considered because there is a potential that they could be offered 
under the contract in time for use by SPP. According to project 
officials, regardless of the vehicle selected, an additional upper 
stage rocket will be required because one of the mission’s key 
challenges is achieving the total launch energy necessary to launch 
the spacecraft toward its ultimate destination—an orbit around the 
Sun. Because of the high launch energy required for SPP, the project 
has to maintain strict mass management to take full advantage of the 
launch vehicle capability. NASA has determined that the Atlas V can 
support the SPP project’s mass allocation with a new solid rocket 
motor upper stage that can be modified from other existing upper stage 
technologies. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: 

A key challenge of the SPP mission will be the development of critical 
technologies that will allow science instruments to function within 
the harsh near-Sun environment. Project officials stated the 
spacecraft will take measurements at about 4 million miles from the 
surface of the Sun—closer than any previous spacecraft. In particular, 
project officials reported that they are concerned with their ability 
to build and test the Thermal Protection System (TPS)—a carbon-foam 
filled sun shield that would shield the instruments from the direct 
heat and radiation of the Sun—at full scale. Officials expect to 
develop and mature a full prototype of the TPS for testing during the 
project’s preliminary design phase. 

Project officials are also focused on the development and production 
of two sets of solar arrays—essentially solar power generators—that 
will retract and extend as the spacecraft moves toward or away from 
the Sun. The solar array cooling system is being developed to ensure 
the solar panels stay at required temperatures. A key to developing 
the cooling system for the solar arrays, is the requirement for it to 
dissipate up to 5,000 watts of thermal energy during the spacecraft’s 
closest approach to the Sun. The project has plans to fabricate and 
test a solar array and a half-scale cooling system as well as a full 
sized actively cooled secondary section solar array prior to the 
mission preliminary design review. 

Although the key technologies will be tested in environments similar 
to mission conditions, it will be impossible to replicate the extreme 
conditions the fully assembled probe will be exposed to during its 
closest proximity to the Sun. Therefore, functionality of the entire 
spacecraft in the near-Sun environment cannot be verified fully by 
testing prior to launch. As a result, project officials said they plan 
to use simulators for the TPS and Solar Arrays in systems test. 
Project officials said they plan to test all of the elements of the 
spacecraft with a heat simulator and then model against the data from 
these tests. 

Project Office Comments: 

The SPP project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that they believe the project remains on track for a 
July 2018 launch readiness date with full schedule reserve. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Space Launch System: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: SLS Project Office 
(artist depiction). 

Formulation: 

11/11: Formulation start; 
12/11: GAO review; 
07/13-12/13: Preliminary design review; 

Implementation: 

01/15-03/15: Critical design review. 
2017: First non-crew launch readiness date; 
2021: First crew launch readiness date. 

Project Challenges: 
* Funding Issues; 
* Design Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Marshall Space Flight Center; 
Partner: None; 
Projected First Non-Crew Launch Date: 2017; 
Projected First Crew Launch Date: 2021; 
Launch Location: Kennedy Space Center, FL; 
Launch Vehicle: N/A; 
Mission Duration: Varied based on destination; 
Requirement derived from: NASA Authorization Act of 2010. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: N/A; 
Type of Contract: N/A; 
Date of Award: N/A; 
Initial Value of Contract: N/A; 
Current Value: N/A. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Preliminary estimate of Project Life Cycle Cost*: 

Latest: Jan. 2012: Not available. 

Launch Schedule: 2017: First non-crew; 2021: First crew. 

* This estimate is preliminary, as the project is in formulation and 
there is uncertainty regarding the costs associated with the design 
options being explored. NASA uses these estimates for planning 
purposes. 

The Space Launch System (SLS) is intended to be the Nation’s first 
heavy-lift launch vehicle since the Saturn V was developed for the 
Apollo program. SLS is planned to eventually launch NASA’s Multi-
Purpose Crew Vehicle to conduct exploration missions beyond Low Earth 
Orbit and service the International Space Station if necessary. The 
vehicle is planned with an initial lift capacity of 70 metric tons to 
low-Earth orbit and evolvable to 130 metric tons. The initial 70 
metric ton capability will include a core stage and two five-segment 
boosters. The 130 metric ton capability will include a core stage, an 
upper stage powered by a J-2X engine, and advanced boosters. 

Project Summary: 

The SLS program formally entered into formulation in November 2011. 
Program officials stated that, given budget constraints, the first SLS 
non-crewed flight could not be scheduled before 2017 and the first 
crewed flight for 2021. An independent assessment of initial budget 
estimates for the SLS program found them to be inadequate for the 
development of program baselines and stated that reserves are 
insufficient. In addition, 15 potential missions are being considered 
for SLS, and as such the program does not have a specific mission to 
guide its design. Program officials report that these 15 missions are 
currently being evaluated for SLS to establish the overall technical 
performance requirements for the vehicle. 

Project Update: 

The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 directed NASA to develop SLS to 
leverage investments made in the Ares project and Space Shuttle 
program and will provide a launch system to Low Earth Orbit and beyond 
by 2016. Although the Authorization Act required NASA to report to 
Congress within 90 days of enactment of the Act on the designs, among 
other things, for the SLS, the agency delayed for several months in 
order to perform cost estimates and study alternative architectures 
before issuing its report in September 2011. The program entered 
formulation in November 2011. To ensure compliance with the Act, NASA 
is continuing to review investments and workforce from the Shuttle 
program and the Ares project that can be leveraged for SLS. Program 
officials reported that the work conducted in fiscal year 2011, 
originally planned for Ares, remained within the scope of the Ares 
prime contracts. This allowed work to continue as NASA refined the 
program’s acquisition strategy and made decisions on whether to 
continue, terminate, or modify the Ares contracts. For example, the 
program has continued development and testing of the five-segment 
rocket booster and J-2X engine that will be used for SLS. Although 
most work is currently being performed through existing contracts, 
some components, such as the Advanced Boosters will be open to 
competition in the future. Finally, program officials reported that 
they are working to identify available vendors for Shuttle-related 
components since NASA has not recently procured some of these 
components. For example, 30 major suppliers for external tank 
components have not been used by NASA since about 2006. 

Funding Issues: 

Although the Authorization Act established a goal to provide SLS 
capability by 2016, NASA officials stated that the projected funding 
levels and the time needed to complete all design requirements will 
not allow the SLS program to achieve full operational capability by 
2016. Currently, NASA is targeting 2017 for the first non-crew flight 
and 2021 for the first crewed flight. Even with the delay to 2017, 
NASA officials emphasized the need to implement a more cost effective 
and efficient way of doing business than was in place on the Ares 
project. These officials specifically cited the importance of having 
sufficient funding reserves both within the program and at 
headquarters. An independent assessment of initial budget estimates 
for the SLS found that although the estimates were reasonable for near-
term planning, they are inadequate for the development of a program 
baseline and stated that program reserves are insufficient. NASA 
officials stated that the agency is conducting a comprehensive review 
of SLS cost estimates in preparation for the President’s fiscal year 
2013 budget request, which will be delivered to Congress in early 
2012. The agency, however, will not provide Congress with a baseline 
life-cycle cost estimate for SLS until February 2013 following the SLS 
confirmation review, when according to NASA officials, the agency will 
have greater understanding of SLS costs and their alignment to the 
associated programs. 

Design issues: 

Though two flight tests are planned, the SLS program currently does 
not have a mission to guide its design. NASA is considering 15 
potential missions, ranging from non-International Space Station lower 
earth orbit utilizations, to lunar surface operations, to landing on 
Mars. Program officials report that these missions are being evaluated 
for SLS to establish the overall technical performance requirements 
for the vehicle. NASA officials did not know when SLS missions will be 
determined, stating that these decisions are typically made by the 
Presidential Administration and Office of Management and Budget. SLS 
program officials stated that the lack of a defined mission is a 
challenge when trying to design and build a vehicle, because the 
program will have to build flexibilities into the design to 
accommodate mission specific requirements. 

Project Office Comments: 

The SLS program office provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Program officials 
also commented that NASA’s commitment to a first launch in 2017 is 
driven both by resource availability and the time needed to complete 
all design requirements. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: E. Zavala. 

Formulation: 

10/91: Formulation start; 

Implementation: 

11/95: Project confirmation; 
08/00: Critical design review; 
12/10: Initial operational capability; 
12/11: GAO review; 
12/14: Full operational capability. 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Funding Issues; 
* Design Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Technology Issues; 
* Contractor Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Dryden Flight Research Center; 
International Partner: German Space Agency; 
Projected Full Operational Capability: Dec. 2014; 
Aircraft: Modified 747SP; 
Sortie Location: Dryden Aircraft Operations Center, Calif. 
Mission Duration: 20 years of science mission flights; 
Requirement derived from: Astronomy and Astrophysics Committee, 
National Research Council, 1991. 

Contract Information: 

Major Contractor: Universities Space Research Association; 
Type of Contract: Cost Plus Fixed Fee; 
Date of Award: December 1996; 
Initial Value of Contract: $484 Million; 
Current Value: $573 Million. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: $2954.5 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $3002.9 million; 
Change: 1.6%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: $35.0 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $35.0 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: $919.5 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $1128.4 million; 
Change: 22.7%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: $2000.0 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $1839.5 million; 
Change: -8.0%. 

Launch Schedule: 
Baseline Est. FY 2007: December 2013; 
Latest Jan 2012: December 2014; 
Change: 12 months. 

SOFIA is a joint project between NASA and the German Space Agency to 
install a 2.5 meter telescope in a specially modified Boeing 747SP 
aircraft. This airborne observatory is designed to provide routine 
access to the visual, infrared, far-infrared, and sub-millimeter parts 
of the electromagnetic spectrum. Its mission objectives include 
studying many different kinds of astronomical objects and phenomena, 
including star birth and death; the formation of new solar systems; 
planets, comets, and asteroids in our solar system; and black holes at 
the center of galaxies. Interchangeable instruments for the 
observatory are being developed to allow a range of scientific 
measurement to be taken by SOFIA. 

Project Summary: 

SOFIA has completed basic science flights and achieved its initial 
operating capability. The project, however, has modified its 
definition for full operating capability based on conflicting baseline 
information from 2007. The project will now satisfy full operating 
capability with only four instruments instead of the eight previously 
reported. In addition, the project is concerned about potential budget 
shortfalls in 2014 and beyond and has investigated options to 
accommodate reduced funding. The project also completed development of 
the cavity door software that previously caused a one year delay to 
initial science flights. SOFIA’s development costs have increased more 
than 268 percent, over $1.1 billion, since its 1995 estimate. 

Project Update: 

In December 2010, SOFIA achieved its initial operating capability. The 
project completed early science flights with the Faint Object Infrared 
Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) and the German Receiver for 
Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies (GREAT) instruments. A total of 13 
science flights with FORCAST and 15 science flights with GREAT were 
completed. In doing so, the project met or exceeded all early science 
requirements, including those for the telescope elevation and image 
size. To achieve a full operating capability, the project previously 
reported that it planned to fly eight instruments on SOFIA. The 
project, however, has modified its definition of full operating 
capability based on its recent interpretation of conflicting baseline 
information contained in the project’s 2007 Major Program Annual 
Report. As a result, the project is currently working toward flying 
with four instruments to satisfy its 2007 agreement of full 
operational capability, which the project believes can be achieved 
prior to December 2014. Two instruments have been successfully 
integrated with the aircraft and two instruments are in the process of 
being integrated. Three other instruments are still in development and 
will be integrated with the aircraft after full operational capability 
is achieved. According to project officials, one instrument—-the 
Caltech Submillimeter Interstellar Medium Investigations Receiver-—was 
descoped when the project realized in the spring of 2010 that its 
capabilities were already being performed by the Herschel mission. 

Funding Issues: 

The SOFIA project completed its Joint Cost and Schedule Confidence 
Level (JCL) process in August 2010. Through this process, the project 
was estimated to cost $27.7 million more than the estimates prior to 
the JCL. According to project officials, the JCL included a higher 
cost of developing the project’s instruments and infrastructure 
improvements at the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility. The project 
is concerned about available funding past fiscal year 2014 and has 
investigated areas of potential compromises if insufficient funds are 
available to maintain the project’s original plans. Overall, SOFIA’s 
development costs have increased more than 268 percent, over $1.1 
billion, since its 1995 estimate. As we have reported previously, this 
increase is partly due to challenges with modification of the aircraft 
to be used for SOFIA, development of the Cavity Door Drive System 
(CDDS), and increased flight hanger costs. 

Design Issues: 

The project identified damage to the observatory’s primary mirror and 
the issue was investigated. Initial analysis concluded that stresses 
caused by thermal expansion of instrumentation cable/wire attachment 
tabs and the backside of the mirror led to the tabs separating from 
their attachment point, which removed small chips of glass from that 
portion of the mirror. The chips were repaired and the project has 
been cleared to continue flights. Delays associated with this issue 
resulted in the loss of three flight opportunities. As we reported 
previously, design challenges with the Cavity Door Drive System (CDDS) 
and longer than anticipated door testing, delayed initial science 
flights by one year. Project officials stated that the CDDS issues 
were being caused by a faulty sensor and have since improved the 
software. According to the project, the CDDS will fly as designed and 
SOFIA can successfully conduct an open door landing. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: Due to developmental delays of SOFIA, 
the project continues to monitor the potential loss of science 
community support. According to the project, support for SOFIA has 
been increasing now that the achievable results-—such as first light 
images obtained in May 2010—have become available. 

Project Office Comments: 

The SOFIA project provided technical comments to a draft of this 
assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project officials 
also commented that the project completed early science and 
engineering flights for observatory characterization and the project 
met or exceeded 100 percent of all early science requirements. They 
added that the project accelerated the demonstration of an 
international deployment. 

[End of fact sheet] 

Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Replenishment: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] Source: E. Zavala. 

Formulation: 

02/07: Formulation start; 
03/09: Preliminary design review; 

Implementation: 

07/09: Project confirmation; 
02/10: Critical design review; 
12/11: GAO review; 
12/12: Launch readiness date - TDRS K; 
12/13: Launch readiness date - TDRS L; 

Recent/Continuing Project Challenges: 
* Contractor Issues; 
* Technology Issues; 
* Launch Issues. 

Previously Reported Challenges: 
* Parts Issues. 

Project Essentials: 

NASA Center Lead: Goddard Space Flight Center; 
Partner: Non-NASA Agencies; 
Projected Launch Date: 
TDRS K – December 2012; 
TDRS L – December 2013; 
Launch Location: Cape Canaveral AFS, FL; 
Launch Vehicle: Atlas V; 
Mission Duration: 15 years; 
Requirement derived from: Support and expand existing TDRSS fleet. 

Contract Information: 

Prime Contractor: Boeing Satellite Systems; 
Type of Contract: Fixed Price Incentive Fee; 
Date of Award: December 2007; 
Initial Value of Contract: $1.38 billion*; 
Current Value: $1.41 billion*; 

* This represents the full cost of the Boeing contract that NASA is 
managing; however, the cost is shared with NASA’s partners. 

Project Performance: 
Then year dollars in millions: 

Total Project Cost*: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $451.3 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $425.5 million; 
Change: -6.7%. 

Formulation Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $241.9 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $241.9 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Development Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $209.4 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $183.6 million; 
Change: -12.3%. 

Operations Cost: 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: $0 million; 
Latest Jan 2012: $0 million; 
Change: 0%. 

Launch Schedule: TDRS K; 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: December 2012; 
Latest Jan 2012: December 2012; 
Change: 0 months. 

Launch Schedule: TDRS L; 
Baseline Est. FY 2010: December 2013; 
Latest Jan 2012: December 2013; 
Change: 0 months. 

* Represents the estimate of NASA funding and does not include 
expected partner contributions. 

The Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) System consists of in-
orbit communication satellites stationed at geosynchronous altitude 
coupled with two ground stations located in New Mexico and Guam. The 
satellite network and ground stations provide mission services for 
near-Earth user satellites and orbiting vehicles. TDRS K and L are the 
11th and 12th satellites, respectively, to be built for the TDRS 
system. They will contribute to the existing network by providing 
continuous high bandwidth digital voice, video, and mission payload 
data, as well as health and safety data relay services to Earth-
orbiting spacecraft such as the International Space Station and the 
Hubble Space Telescope. 

Project Summary: 

The TDRS-K project was on the launch manifest for its internal 
management launch date of June 2012. However, contractor schedule 
performance and system level integration and test issues have depleted 
the schedule margin to this date and the project reported it was re-
manifested to its December 2012 baseline launch date. Boeing is adding 
resources and pulling work forward on TDRS L in an effort to preserve 
its internal management launch date of February 2013; however, TDRS L 
is currently scheduled to launch in February 2014. Project officials 
report that the agency is actively working to find a launch slot in 
2013 to meet its December 2013 commitment. 

Project Update: 

Contractor Issues: 

The TDRS replenishment project has experienced cost overruns and 
depletions of schedule margin against the manifested June 2012 launch 
date that, according to project officials, was a result of 
subcontractor schedule performance and system level integration and 
test issues at the prime contractor—Boeing. According to project 
officials, Boeing has exceeded the ceiling price on the fixed price 
incentive fee contract and is responsible for costs exceeding the 
ceiling unless valid requests for equitable adjustments or claims are 
submitted to and accepted by NASA. Project officials stated that 
challenges faced by Boeing include late delivery of payload units from 
two of Boeing’s subcontractors, and technical issues found during 
spacecraft bus and payload module integration and testing. For 
example, the Channel Control Unit exhibited a small non-compliance 
during testing that required further testing. This issue contributed 
to the payload module being delayed for system level thermal vacuum 
testing. 

Technology Issues: 

Project officials reported delays due to merging new ground systems 
software code with the existing operational software baseline at the 
White Sands Complex. The project continues to track latent software 
defects as a risk because additional software defects could have cost 
and schedule impacts. In addition, project officials reported that 
heavy demands on the TDRS ground systems from existing satellites 
makes integration of TDRS K modifications a challenge. The project is 
waiting for completion of a study to determine if current resources 
will be adequate. However, project officials stated that if additional 
ground assets are needed, costs could increase as these assets can be 
very expensive. 

Launch Issues: 

The TDRS K project continues to maintain its baseline launch readiness 
date of December 2012. Project officials stated that late payload unit 
deliveries and issues found during integration and testing, however, 
have depleted the schedule margin to its June 2012 internal management 
launch date. TDRS-K was on the launch manifest for June 2012; however, 
the project reports that the mission has been re-manifested for 
December 2012. Boeing is adding resources and pulling work forward on 
TDRS L in an effort to preserve its internal management launch date of 
February 2013, however, as a result of the manifest change for TDRS K, 
TDRS L is now manifested to launch in February 2014. Project officials 
report that the agency is actively working to find a launch slot after 
June 2013 to allow for adequate on-orbit testing on TDRS K before TDRS 
L is launched and to meet the December 2013 commitment. 

Other Issues to be Monitored: 

NASA considers the TDRS system to be a national asset. The 
International Space Station is supported by, and many near-Earth 
spacecraft are dependent upon, the satellite system for communication. 
However, even with the successful launch of TDRS K and L, continuity 
of service for the TDRS System can only be ensured for NASA and other 
government agency users through approximately fiscal year 2016 at 
current support levels. The primary reason for this is due to an aging 
fleet of satellites currently in operations and the recent retirement 
of two spacecraft. According to project officials, the current fixed 
price incentive fee development contract with Boeing for TDRS K and L 
includes options to produce two additional TDRS satellites that could 
extend TDRS system service continuity. In November 2011, NASA elected 
to exercise the first option for TDRS-M at an estimated value of $289 
million. 

Project Office Comments: 

The TDRS Replenishment project provided technical comments to a draft 
of this assessment, which were incorporated as appropriate. Project 
officials also commented that while the prime contractor has 
experienced subcontractor delivery and integration and test delays, 
the TDRS project is on track to satisfy the program commitment for a 
December 2012 launch of TDRS K. They added that the project has also 
made progress integrating and testing ground modifications in the 
operational environment at White Sands and the modifications are 
planned to be completed prior to the launch of TDRS K. 

[End of fact sheet] 

[End of section] 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report to NASA for review and comment. In 
its written response, NASA agreed with our findings and stated that it 
remains dedicated to continuous improvement of its acquisition 
management processes and performance and will continue to identify and 
address the challenges that lead to cost and schedule growth in its 
projects. 

NASA commented on the information we presented on contract value 
changes. Specifically, NASA noted that there are multiple factors that 
could drive a change in a contract's value, such as evolving 
requirements and funding availability; however, NASA did not provide 
explanations of contract value changes for the majority of the 
projects we reviewed. There are multiple factors that could lead to an 
increase or decrease in a contract's value, but we note that 
unexpected changes that significantly increase the contract's value 
could also increase the overall life-cycle cost of a project. Upon 
further reflection, we removed the information on contract value 
changes because we believe this is an area that warrants a more 
detailed examination and, as noted in our report, we plan to study the 
extent to which changes in contract value could impact cost and 
schedule baselines in the future. We look forward to working with NASA 
to ensure that it provides sufficient information to explain the 
reason(s) behind any changes to contract values. 

NASA also stated that our definition of funding challenges is broader 
than its definition. We agree that the definition is broad in terms of 
scope. While there is value in defining funding challenges more 
consistently for individual projects, it is their cumulative effect 
that is of greater concern. For example, the agency is already feeling 
the effects of a constrained budget and ramifications of the 
significant cost increase experienced by the JWST project as evidenced 
by the termination of the EMTGO project. As stated in the report, we 
view this challenge as an area that will require close attention in 
the next few years as NASA moves forward with JWST and even larger 
investments in its human spaceflight program while operating in a 
constrained budget environment. 

Consistent with its comments on our previous reviews, NASA noted that 
its projects are high-risk, one-of-a-kind development efforts that do 
not lend themselves to all the practices of a "business case" approach 
that we outlined since essential attributes of NASA's project 
development differ from those of a production entity. We recognize 
these differences and have made adjustments to our assessment 
methodology. For example, we do not assess NASA's science projects for 
production maturity and tailor our evaluation of technology maturity 
given testing constraints associated with its projects. The basic 
premise, however, of developing a sound business case for a project 
does apply to NASA projects and helps ensure that the agency is making 
well-informed decisions based on high levels of knowledge about the 
risks associated with an individual project and how it fits into the 
broader portfolio of projects. NASA has recognized the importance of 
developing a sound business case and incorporated this concept into 
its program and project management policy document. 

We continue to work with NASA officials on opportunities to refine the 
information they use to ensure adequate levels of knowledge exist at 
key points in a project life cycle and measure the progress of their 
projects. For example, given NASA's concerns with the drawing release 
metric we use, last year we recommended that NASA develop a common set 
of measurable and proven criteria to assess design stability and to 
amend NASA's systems engineering policy to that effect. In response, 
NASA has developed a set of proposed indicators to monitor the 
progress of a project's design that it believes will provide a more 
comprehensive approach than it currently uses. NASA plans to update 
its policies and handbooks to include this information. We believe 
this approach has merit as the indicators will track the development 
of the design beginning at the preliminary design review and will 
bring more focused attention to the issue. NASA and GAO will need to 
monitor the use of these indicators over the life cycle of several 
projects to determine their effectiveness, as NASA currently does not 
have data to support such a determination. We will continue to work 
with NASA to discuss the application of these and other metrics to 
asses design maturity; however, regardless of the metric used to 
monitor design progress, the need for a stable design to support sound 
and informed decision making is valid. Our work has shown that if 
project development continues without design stability, it is at a 
greater risk of costly re-designs to address changes to project 
requirements and unforeseen challenges. We appreciate the work that 
NASA has done to begin to address this issue and look forward to the 
process of proving out these indicators. 

NASA's written comments are reprinted in appendix I. NASA also 
provided technical comments, which we addressed and incorporated 
throughout the report as appropriate. 

We will send copies of the report to NASA's Administrator and 
interested congressional committees. We will also make copies 
available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be 
available at no charge on GAO's Web site at [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov]. 

Should you or your staff have any questions on matters discussed in 
this report, please contact me at (202) 512-4841 or chaplainc@gao.gov. 
Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 
Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who 
made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix VI. 

Signed by: 

Cristina T. Chaplain: 
Director Acquisition and Sourcing Management: 

List of Congressional Committees: 

The Honorable Barbara A. Mikulski:
Chairwoman:
The Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies:
Committee on Appropriations:
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Bill Nelson:
Chairman:
The Honorable John Boozman:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Science and Space:
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation:
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Frank R. Wolf:
Chairman:
The Honorable Chaka Fattah:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies:
Committee on Appropriations:
House of Representatives: 

The Honorable Steven Palazzo:
Chairman:
The Honorable Jerry Costello:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics:
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology:
House of Representatives: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Comments from the National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration: 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration: 
Office of the Administrator: 
Washington, DC 20546-0001: 

February 16, 2012: 

Ms. Cristina Chaplain: 
Director: 
Acquisition and Sourcing Management: 
United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Ms. Chaplain: 

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) appreciates 
the opportunity to comment on the Government Accountability Office 
(GAO) draft report entitled "Assessments of Selected Large-Scale 
Projects" (GAO-12-207SP). NASA values the continued open and 
constructive communications between NASA and the GAO on this effort 
and appreciates the ongoing work by the GAO audit team. NASA remains 
dedicated to continuous improvement of its acquisition management 
processes and performance and will continue to work with the GAO to 
identify and address any challenges that may lead to cost and schedule 
growth of our projects. 

NASA is pleased that the GAO recognized NASA's achievements in 2011 
with the launch of 5 of the 15 projects evaluated as part of the GAO's 
assessment. Aquarius launched on June 10, 2011, and on September 22, 
2011, the project released its first global map of the salinity of the 
ocean surface, providing an early glimpse of the mission's anticipated 
discoveries. Juno launched on August 5, 2011, and is now on its five-
year journey to Jupiter. Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory 
(GRAIL) launched on September 10, 2011, and has already beamed back 
its first images of the far side of the moon. The instrument that 
acquired these images, MoonKAM, is dedicated to student-led efforts in 
selecting lunar images for study. NASA launched the National Polar-
orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory 
Project (NPP) on October 28, 2011. The project was recently renamed
Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership, or Suomi NPP, in honor of 
the late Verner E. Suomi, who is recognized widely as "the father of 
satellite meteorology." Lastly, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) 
launched on November 26, 2011, and is expected to arrive at Mars in 
August 2012. 

NASA also recognizes that the continuing refinement, improvement, and 
implementation of sound acquisition practices, policies ,and processes 
are essential to reducing project cost and schedule growth on future 
similar missions. As highlighted in the draft report, NASA continues 
to implement initiatives to mitigate acquisition management risks. 
NASA instituted a Joint Cost and Schedule Confidence Level (JCL) 
policy in 2009 to increase likelihood of project success at the 
specified funding level. Implementation of the JCL process closely 
followed the adoption of a policy that requires projects to be 
budgeted at 70 percent confidence level for their estimated cost, as 
part of NASA's continuous improvement in cost estimating policies and 
processes. 

The JCL is one of many inputs into the baseline decision process and 
has the desired effect of increasing insight by both the project 
manager and NASA's leadership by appropriately taking into account 
risk-based uncertainties associated with the integrated cost and 
schedule plan. As NASA continues to implement and improve the use of 
the JCL process, we will continue to assess the impact of this process 
on cost and schedule performance, as the projects baselined under this 
policy complete their development phase. To date, two projects that 
were subject to the 70 percent cost confidence level policy had 
successful launches (on schedule and within the estimated cost) — Juno 
and GRAIL. Additionally, the missions baselined are using the JCL 
process Magnetospheric Multiscale, Lunar Atmosphere and Dust 
Environment Explorer, and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution — 
currently remain on track to complete development within their cost 
baselines. NASA expects many of the current missions under development 
to be completed within cost and schedule as per the 70 percent JCL 
policy. 

In the draft report, the GAO supplied a table that outlines the value 
change on multiple contracts for projects in implementation and noted 
plans to study contract value changes and the extent to which they 
could impact cost and schedule baselines. NASA looks forward to 
working with the GAO to facilitate a better understanding of the 
Agency's contracting policy and practices, with respect to management 
of contracts. The table on page 17: "Contract Value Changes for 
Selected Major NASA Projects" illustrates a change in contract value 
from initial award to current value. The difference between these two 
values could be attributed to many factors — most notably increases in 
content performed on the contract and do not necessarily represent 
unwarranted cost growth. 

A change to contract value across the period of performance may result 
from planned, evolving requirements, funding availability at the time 
of initial award, funding changes that deviate from the planned 
profile, and/or the exercise of a contract option. For example, some 
of the contracts identified in the report were initially awarded in 
the project formulation phase and included an initial, narrow segment 
of work rather than the full spectrum of activities associated with a 
project's life cycle. In these cases, as projects matured from 
formulation into implementation, the scope of work was expanded to 
include requirements appropriate to the implementation phase. 

The draft report identifies that 12 of the 21 projects assessed 
experienced funding challenges. While NASA agrees that projects have 
experienced funding challenges, the breadth of the GAO's definition 
appears broader than NASA's definition of this issue based on the 
projects assessed. Moving forward, NASA will work with the GAO to 
refine the definition of a funding challenge to strengthen the annual 
assessment and provide an improved construct for assessing projects on 
this issue. 

As stated in previous years, NASA already implements many of the 
elements of the GAO's stated "knowledge-based business case" approach, 
where appropriate and applicable to a research and development 
project. While NASA business practices represent some alignment to 
this approach, there are essential attributes of NASA's project 
development that differ from those of a commercial and/or production 
entity. Specifically, NASA's spaceflight systems rarely have a 
production phase and, with few exceptions, are not based upon a spiral 
development process. NASA's missions extend the state of the art in 
the areas of science and technology by investigating new areas of 
space science and aeronautics. This is accomplished typically through 
the development of one-of-a-kind missions employing new or complex 
technologies and systems. As a result, these are high-risk activities. 

NASA continues to work with the GAO to adapt its assessment 
methodology to better assess and reflect NASA's programs and projects. 
For example, as noted in the draft report, many of the projects in 
implementation experienced challenges with design stability, as 
indicated by the percentage of engineering drawings releasable at 
critical design review. NASA and the GAO have discussed an alternative 
measure to the drawing release metric, based on NASA's opinion that 
this is only one of many indicators to measure a project's readiness 
as they move forward from the critical design review. As shared with 
the GAO, NASA's plan is to enhance the ability to monitor and assess 
the stability of programs and projects, as well as the maturity of 
their products through the development process using a more 
comprehensive approach, including a set of proposed indicators as an 
alternative to the drawing release metric. This approach will be 
included in updates to our policies and handbooks for program and 
project management, as also recommended in House Report
(House Report 112-69) accompanying the FY 2012 Commerce, Justice, 
Science, and related agencies appropriations bill. 

Finally, NASA would like to thank the GAO for considering and 
incorporating many technical corrections provided by projects' subject 
matter experts as part of the audit. Inclusion of these comments is 
important to present an accurate and balanced view. 

NASA is committed to working with the GAO jointly to address any 
questions. NASA appreciates the ongoing opportunity to comment on the 
assessments and will continue to work with the GAO to ensure that 
comments are submitted and appropriately reflected in final reports. 
If you have any questions or require additional information, please 
contact Tracy Osborne at (202) 358-3795. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Lori B. Garver: 
Deputy Administrator: 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Our objectives were to report on the status and challenges faced by 
NASA systems with life-cycle costs of $250 million or more and to 
discuss broader trends faced by the agency in its management of 
acquisitions. In conducting our work, we evaluated performance and 
identified challenges for each of 21 major projects. We summarized our 
assessments of each individual project in two components--a project 
profile and a detailed discussion of project challenges. We did not 
validate the data provided by the project offices, but reviewed the 
data and performed various checks to determine that the data were 
reliable enough for our purposes. Where we discovered discrepancies, 
we clarified the data accordingly. Where applicable, we confirmed the 
accuracy of NASA-generated data with multiple sources within NASA and, 
in some cases, with external sources. 

We developed a standardized data collection instrument (DCI) that was 
completed by each project office. Through the DCI, we gathered basic 
information about projects as well as current and projected 
development activities for those projects. The cost and schedule data 
estimates that NASA provided were the most recent updates as of 
January 2012; NASA provided performance data as of May 2011 and 
updated this data for some projects through January 2012. At the time 
we collected the data, 6 of the 21 projects were in the formulation 
phase and the remaining 15 projects were in the implementation phase. 
To further understand performance issues, we analyzed monthly status 
reviews for each project for which they were available and talked with 
officials from most of the project offices and NASA's Office of the 
Chief Financial Officer (OCFO), Strategic Investments Division (SID). 
We also collected cost and schedule data for projects in operations 
that we had reviewed in prior reports for historical purposes. These 
projects were Dawn, Gamma-ray Large Area SpaceTelescope, Glory, 
Herschel, Kepler, Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter, Orbiting Carbon 
Observatory, Solar Dynamics Observatory, and Wide-field Infrared 
Survey Explorer. 

The information collected from each project office, Mission 
Directorate, and OCFO/SID were summarized in a 2-page report format 
providing a project overview; key cost, contract, and schedule data; 
and a discussion of the challenges associated with the deviation from 
relevant indicators from best practice standards. The aggregate 
measures and averages calculated were analyzed for meaningful 
relationships, e.g., relationship between cost growth and schedule 
slippage and knowledge maturity attained both at critical milestones 
and through the various stages of the project life cycle. We 
identified cost and/or schedule growth as significant where, in either 
case, a project's cost and/or its schedule exceeded the thresholds 
that trigger reporting to the Congress. 

To supplement our analysis, we relied on GAO's work over past years 
examining acquisition issues across multiple agencies. These reports 
cover such issues as contracting, program management, acquisition 
policy, and cost estimating. GAO also has an extensive body of work 
related to challenges NASA has faced with specific system 
acquisitions, financial management, and cost estimating. This work 
provided the context and basis for large parts of the general 
observations we made about the projects we reviewed. Additionally, the 
discussions with the individual NASA projects helped us identify 
further challenges faced by the projects. Together, the past work and 
additional discussions contributed to our development of a short list 
of challenges discussed for each project. The challenges we identified 
and discussed do not represent an exhaustive or exclusive list. They 
are subject to change and evolution as GAO continues this annual 
assessment in future years. The challenges, indicated as "issues," are 
based on our definitions and assessments, not that of NASA. 

To assess NASA's efforts to improve its acquisition management, we 
requested Joint Cost and Schedule Confidence Levels (JCL) for the five 
projects that completed them. For each of the five projects, NASA 
provided us with a few slides that summarized each project's JCL 
analysis. These project JCLs were incomplete and received late in our 
review, affecting our ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the 
data. To determine whether NASA's was budgeting to the 70 percent 
confidence level established in the JCL policy, we compared the JCL 
cost estimate to NASA's Integrated Budget and Performance documents. 
We previously received independent cost estimates and Standing Review 
Board presentations on some of these projects. In most cases, we 
received independent cost estimates conducted at the center level by 
the projects, along with estimates by the Aerospace Corporation and/or 
by NASA's Independent Program Assessment Office. We also requested the 
Deputy Program Management Council's JCL decision memos, but these were 
not provided in time to include in our analysis. We interviewed NASA 
officials and officials from one of the contractors that helped to 
develop the JCL model to discuss the policy's development and 
implementation. 

We also have ongoing work that is assessing whether NASA's large 
spaceflight projects are effectively using earned value management 
techniques to manage their acquisitions. The team performing this 
review requested earned value management data for 10 of the 21 
projects in our review and plan to report its findings in the summer 
of 2012. 

Our work was performed primarily at NASA headquarters in Washington, 
D.C. In addition, we visited NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at 
Edwards Air Force Base in California; Goddard Space Flight Center in 
Greenbelt, Maryland; the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, 
California; Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas; and Marshall Space 
Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, to discuss individual projects. 
We also met with officials from NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett 
Field in California. 

Data Limitations: 

NASA provided updated cost and schedule data as of January 2012 for 
projects in implementation, or 15 of the 21 projects in our review. 
NASA provided internal preliminary estimated total (life-cycle) cost 
ranges and associated schedules for three of the projects that had not 
yet entered implementation, which were established at key decision 
point B (KDP-B).[Footnote 38] We did not receive cost estimates or 
ranges for three projects--ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, Orion Multi-
Purpose Crew Vehicle, and Space Launch System--since these projects 
had not yet reached their KDP-B, the point in the acquisition life 
cycle where a preliminary life-cycle cost estimate would normally be 
developed. We did receive preliminary scheduled launch dates for one 
of these projects--ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. NASA formally 
establishes cost and schedule baselines, committing itself to cost and 
schedule targets for a project with a specific and aligned set of 
planned mission objectives, at key decision point C (KDP-C), which 
follows a preliminary design review (PDR). KDP-C reflects the life-
cycle point where NASA approves a project to leave the formulation 
phase and enter into the implementation phase. NASA explained that 
preliminary estimates are generated for internal planning and fiscal 
year budgeting purposes at KDP-B, which occurs midstream in the 
formulation phase, and hence, are not considered a formal commitment 
by the agency on cost and schedule for the mission deliverables. NASA 
officials stated that because of changes that occur to a project's 
scope and technologies between KDP-B and KDP-C, estimates of project 
cost and schedule can change significantly heading toward KDP-C. 

Project Profile Information on Each Individual 2-Page Assessment: 

This section of the 2-page assessment outlines the essentials of the 
project, its cost and schedule performance, and its summary. Project 
essentials reflect pertinent information about each project, 
including, where applicable, the major contractors and partners 
involved in the project. These organizations have primary 
responsibility over a major segment of the project or, in some cases, 
the entire project. 

Project performance is depicted according to cost and schedule changes 
in the various stages of the project life cycle. To assess the cost 
and schedule changes of each project, we obtained data directly from 
NASA OCFO/SID and from NASA's Integrated Budget and Performance 
documents. We compared the current cost and schedule data reported by 
NASA in January 2012 to previously established project cost and 
schedule baselines to determine the extent to which each project 
exceeded its baselines. 

All cost information is presented in nominal then-year dollars for 
consistency with budget data.[Footnote 39] Baseline costs are adjusted 
to reflect the cost accounting structure in NASA's fiscal year 2009 
budget estimates. For the fiscal year 2009 budget request, NASA 
changed its accounting practices from full-cost accounting to 
reporting only direct costs at the project level. The schedule 
assessment is based on acquisition cycle time, which is defined as the 
number of months between the project's start, or formulation start, 
and projected or actual launch date.[Footnote 40] Formulation start 
generally refers to the initiation of a project; NASA refers to a 
project's start as key decision point A, or the beginning of the 
formulation phase. The preliminary design review typically occurs 
toward the end of the formulation phase, followed by a review at key 
decision point C, known as project confirmation, which allows the 
project to move into the implementation phase. The critical design 
review is generally held during the latter half of the final design 
and fabrication phase of implementation and demonstrates that the 
maturity of the design is appropriate to support continuing with the 
final design and fabrication phase. Launch readiness is determined 
through a launch readiness review that verifies that the launch system 
and spacecraft/payloads are ready for launch. The implementation phase 
includes the operations of the mission and concludes with project 
disposal. 

Project Challenges Discussion on Each Individual 2-Page Assessment: 

To assess the project challenges for each project, we submitted a DCI 
to each project office. In the data collection instrument, we 
requested information on the maturity of critical and heritage 
technologies, number of releasable design drawings at project 
milestones, software development information, project contractors with 
related contract values and award fees, and project partnerships. We 
also held interviews with representatives from each of the projects to 
discuss the information on the data collection instrument. These 
discussions led to identification of further challenges faced by NASA 
projects. The seven challenges we identified were largely apparent in 
the projects that had entered the implementation phase; however, there 
were instances where these challenges were identified in projects in 
the formulation phase. We then reviewed pertinent project 
documentation--such as project plans, schedules, risk assessments, and 
major project review documentation--to corroborate any testimonial 
evidence we received in the interviews. 

To assess issues with technology, we asked project officials to 
provide the technology readiness levels of each of the project's 
critical technologies at various stages of project development. 
Originally developed by NASA, technology readiness levels are measured 
on a scale of one to nine, beginning with paper studies of a 
technology's feasibility and culminating with a technology fully 
integrated into a completed product. (See appendix IV for the 
definitions of technology readiness levels.) In most cases, we did not 
validate the project offices' selection of critical technologies or 
the determination of the demonstrated level of maturity. However, we 
sought to clarify the technology readiness levels in those cases where 
the information provided raised concerns, such as where a critical 
technology was reported as immature late in the project development 
cycle. Additionally, we asked project officials to explain the 
environments in which technologies were tested. 

Our best practices work has shown that a technology readiness level of 
6--demonstrating a technology as a fully integrated prototype in a 
relevant environment--is the level of maturity needed to minimize 
risks for space systems entering product development. In our 
assessment, the technologies that have reached technology readiness 
level 6 are referred to as fully mature because of the difficulty of 
achieving technology readiness level 7, which is demonstrating 
maturity in an operational environment--space. Projects with critical 
technologies that did not achieve maturity by the preliminary design 
review were assessed as having a technology issue project challenge. 
We did not assess technology maturity for those projects that had not 
yet reached the preliminary design review at the time of this 
assessment.[Footnote 41] 

We also asked project officials to assess the technology readiness 
level of each of the project's heritage technologies at various stages 
of project development and interviewed project officials about the use 
of heritage technologies in their projects. We asked them what 
heritage technologies were being used; what effort was needed to 
modify the form, fit, and function of the technology for use in the 
new system; whether the project encountered any problems in modifying 
the technology; and whether the project considered the heritage 
technology as a risk to the project. Heritage technologies were not 
considered critical technologies by several of the projects we 
reviewed. Based on our interviews, review of data from the data 
collection instruments, and previous GAO work on space systems, we 
determined whether these technology issues were a challenge for a 
particular project. 

To assess design stability, we asked project officials to provide the 
percentage of engineering drawings completed or projected for 
completion by the preliminary and critical design reviews and as of 
our current assessment.[Footnote 42] In most cases, we did not verify 
or validate the percentage of engineering drawings provided by the 
project office. However, we collected the project offices' rationale 
for cases where it appeared that only a small number of drawings were 
completed by the time of the design reviews or where the project 
office reported significant growth in the number of drawings released 
after the critical design review. In accordance with best practices, 
projects were assessed as having achieved design stability if they had 
at least 90 percent of projected drawings releasable by the critical 
design review. Projects that had not met this metric were determined 
to have a design stability project challenge. Though some projects 
used other methods to assess design stability, such as computer and 
engineering models and analyses, we did not assess the effectiveness 
of these other methods. We did not assess design stability for those 
projects that had not yet reached the critical design review at the 
time of this assessment. 

To assess issues with launch, we interviewed NASA's Launch Services 
and project officials. Launch issues were considered a challenge if, 
after establishing a firm launch date, a project had difficulty 
rescheduling its launch date because the project was not ready; if the 
project could be affected by another project slipping its launch; or 
if there were launch vehicle fleet issues. In addition, we assessed 
the status of launch vehicle selection for projects in formulation and 
considered it a challenge if the proposed timing for the launch 
vehicle's selection date falls after preliminary design review due to 
the availability of certified medium class launch vehicles. 

To assess issues with contractor management, we interviewed project 
officials about their interaction and experience with contractors. We 
also interviewed contractor representatives from Northrop Grumman 
Aerospace Systems and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. They 
informed us about contractor performance problems pertaining to their 
workforce, the supplier base, and technical and corporate experience. 
We assessed a project as having this challenge if these contractor 
issues caused the project to experience a cost overrun, schedule 
delay, or decrease in mission capability. For projects that did not 
have a major contractor, we considered this challenge inapplicable to 
the project. 

To assess issues with parts quality, we submitted a data collection 
instrument to all of the projects in the implementation phase that 
were scheduled to be operating in a space environment. In addition, we 
asked project officials to identify project components that 
encountered parts quality or availability problems during development. 
Additionally, we asked project officials to explain the environments 
in which the parts quality issues were discovered and any implication 
on the project's cost and schedule. We considered parts issues a 
challenge if there were actual or potential cost and/or schedule 
impacts to the project as a result of parts quality or availability, 
or if the project had to take special steps in order to address parts 
issues. 

To assess issues with development partners, we interviewed NASA 
project officials about their interaction with international or 
domestic partners during project development. Development partner 
issues were considered a challenge for the project if project 
officials indicated that domestic or foreign partners were 
experiencing problems with project development that impacted the cost, 
schedule, or performance of the project for NASA. These challenges 
were specific to the partner organization or caused by a contractor to 
that partner organization. For projects that did not have an 
international or domestic development partner, we considered this 
challenge not applicable to the project. 

To assess issues with funding, we interviewed officials from NASA's 
OCFO/SID and NASA project officials, and also relied upon past 
interviews with project contractors about the stability of funding 
throughout the project life cycle. Funding issues were considered a 
challenge if officials indicated that a project's funding had been 
interrupted or delayed resulting in an impact to the cost, schedule, 
or performance of the project or if project officials indicated that 
the project's budget does not have sufficient funding in certain years 
based on the work expected to be accomplished. We corroborated the 
funding changes and reasons with budget documents when available. 

The individual project offices were given an opportunity to comment on 
and provide technical clarifications to the 2-page assessments prior 
to their inclusion in the final product. We incorporated these 
comments as appropriate and where sufficient supporting documentation 
was provided. 

We conducted this performance audit from March 2011 to March 2012 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Selected Major NASA Projects Reviewed in GAO's Annual 
Assessments: 

We have reviewed 32 major NASA projects since our initial review in 
2009. See table 3 below for a list of projects included in our 
assessments from 2009 to 2012 and whether the project was in 
formulation or implementation at the time of our review. 

Table 3: Selected Major NASA Projects Reviewed in GAO's Annual 
Assessments: 

Projects in formulation: 

2009: 
Ares I; 
GPM; 
JWST; 
LDCM; 
Orion. 

2010: 
Ares I; 
GPM; 
LDCM; 
Orion. 

2011: 
Ares I[C]; 
ICESat-2; 
Orion[C]; 
SMAP; 
SPP. 

2012: 
EMTGO[D].
ICESat-2; 
Orion MPCV; 
SLS; 
SMAP; 
SPP. 

Projects in implementation: 

2009: 
Aquarius; 
Dawn[A]; 
GLAST[A]; 
Glory; 
Herschel; 
Kepler; 
LRO; 
MSL; 
NPP; 
OCO[B]; 
SDO; 
SOFIA; 
WISE. 

2010: 
Aquarius; 
Glory; 
GRAIL; 
Herschel[A]; 
Juno; 
JWST; 
Kepler[A]; 
LRO[A]; 
MMS; 
MSL; 
NPP; 
RBSP; 
SDO[A]; 
SOFIA; 
WISE[A]. 

2011: 
Aquarius; 
Glory[B]; 
GPM; 
GRAIL; 
Juno; 
JWST; 
LADEE; 
LDCM; 
MAVEN; 
MMS; 
MSL; 
NPP; 
OCO-2; 
RBSP; 
SOFIA; 
TDRS Replenishment. 

2012: 
Aquarius[A]; 
GPM; 
GRAIL[A]; 
Juno[A]; 
JWST; 
LADEE; 
LDCM; 
MAVEN; 
MMS; 
MSL[A]; 
NPP[A].
OCO-2; 
RBSP; 
SOFIA; 
TDRS Replenishment. 

[End of table] 

Source: GAO Analysis of NASA data. 

[A] NASA projects that have launched. 

[B] NASA projects that have launched but failed to reach orbit. 

[C] NASA projects that were canceled before entering implementation. 

[D] In February 2012, NASA proposed canceling the EMTGO project as 
part of its fiscal year 2013 budget request. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: Technology Readiness Levels: 

Technology readiness level: 1. Basic principles observed and reported; 
Description: Lowest level of technology readiness. Scientific research 
begins to be translated into applied research and development. 
Examples might include paper studies of a technology's basic 
properties; 
Hardware: None (paper studies and analysis); 
Demonstration environment: None. 

Technology readiness level: 2. Technology concept and/or application 
formulated; 
Description: Invention begins. Once basic principles are observed, 
practical applications can be invented. The application is speculative 
and there is no proof or detailed analysis to support the assumption. 
Examples are still limited to paper studies; 
Hardware: None (paper studies and analysis); 
Demonstration environment: None. 

Technology readiness level: 3. Analytical and experimental critical 
function and/or characteristic proof of concept; 
Description: Active research and development is initiated. This 
includes analytical studies and laboratory studies to physically 
validate analytical predictions of separate elements of the 
technology. Examples include components that are not yet integrated or 
representative; 
Hardware: Analytical studies and demonstration of nonscale individual 
components (pieces of subsystem); 
Demonstration environment: Lab. 

Technology readiness level: 4. Component and/or breadboard; 
Validation in laboratory environment; 
Description: Basic technological components are integrated to 
establish that the pieces will work together. This is relatively "low 
fidelity" compared to the eventual system. Examples include 
integration of ad-hoc hardware in a laboratory; 
Hardware: Low fidelity breadboard; 
Integration of nonscale components to show pieces will work together. 
Not fully functional or form or fit but representative of technically 
feasible approach suitable for flight articles; 
Demonstration environment: Lab. 

Technology readiness level: 5. Component and/or breadboard validation 
in relevant environment; 
Description: Fidelity of breadboard technology increases 
significantly. The basic technological components are integrated with 
reasonably realistic supporting elements so that the technology can be 
tested in a simulated environment. Examples include high-fidelity 
laboratory integration of components; 
Hardware: High-fidelity breadboard; 
Functionally equivalent but not necessarily form and/or fit (size, 
weight, materials, etc). Should be approaching appropriate scale. May 
include integration of several components with reasonably realistic 
support elements/subsystems to demonstrate functionality; 
Demonstration environment: Lab demonstrating functionality but not 
form and fit. May include flight demonstrating breadboard in surrogate 
aircraft. Technology ready for detailed design studies. 

Technology readiness level: 6. System/subsystem model or prototype 
demonstration in a relevant environment; 
Description: Representative model or prototype system, which is well 
beyond the breadboard tested for TRL 5, is tested in a relevant 
environment. Represents a major step up in a technology's demonstrated 
readiness. Examples include testing a prototype in a high fidelity 
laboratory environment or in simulated realistic environment; 
Hardware: Prototype. Should be very close to form, fit, and function. 
Probably includes the integration of many new components and realistic 
supporting elements/subsystems if needed to demonstrate full 
functionality of the subsystem; 
Demonstration environment: High-fidelity lab demonstration or 
limited/restricted flight demonstration for a relevant environment. 
Integration of technology is well defined. 

Technology readiness level: 7. System prototype demonstration in a 
realistic environment; 
Description: Prototype near or at planned operational system. 
Represents a major step up from TRL 6, requiring the demonstration of 
an actual system prototype in a realistic environment, such as in an 
aircraft, vehicle, or space. Examples include testing the prototype in 
a test bed aircraft; 
Hardware: Prototype. Should be form, fit, and function integrated with 
other key supporting elements/subsystems to demonstrate full 
functionality of subsystem; 
Demonstration environment: Flight demonstration in representative 
realistic environment such as flying test bed or demonstrator 
aircraft. Technology is well substantiated with test data. 

Technology readiness level: 8. Actual system completed and "flight 
qualified" through test and demonstration; 
Description: Technology has been proven to work in its final form and 
under expected conditions. In almost all cases, this TRL represents 
the end of true system development. Examples include developmental 
test and evaluation of the system in its intended weapon system to 
determine if it meets design specifications; 
Hardware: Flight qualified hardware; 
Demonstration environment: Developmental Test and Evaluation (DT&E) in 
the actual system application. 

Technology readiness level: 9. Actual system "flight-proven" through 
successful mission operations; 
Description: Actual application of the technology in its final form 
and under mission conditions, such as those encountered in operational 
test and evaluation. In almost all cases, this is the end of the last 
"bug-fixing" aspects of true system development. Examples include 
using the system under operational mission conditions; 
Hardware: Actual system in final form; 
Demonstration environment: Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) in 
operational mission conditions. 

Source: GAO and its analysis of NASA data. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix V: Significant Accomplishments of Projects That Have Launched: 

Ten major NASA projects that we have reviewed launched prior to 
October 2011 and have begun mission operations. Below is a description 
of each mission's objective, its launch date, and a list of some of 
its significant accomplishments. 

Aquarius: 

Mission Objective: Investigate the links between the global water 
cycle, ocean circulation, and the climate—including measuring global 
sea surface salinity. 

Launch Date: June 2011. 

Date Mission Operations Began: August 2011. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* September 2011 – Released its first global map of ocean surface 
salinity. 

Dawn: 

Mission Objective: Make measurements of the two largest asteroids in 
our solar system, Vesta and Ceres. 

Launch Date: September 2007. 

Date Mission Operations Began: October 2007. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* July-August 2011 – Reached orbit around Vesta asteroid and completed 
survey science phase; 
* September 2011 – Transitioned to high-altitude mapping orbit and 
began science operations at this orbit. 

Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST): 

Mission Objectives: (1) Understand the mechanisms of particle 
acceleration in astrophysical environments; (2) determine the high-
energy behavior of gamma-ray bursts; (3) resolve and identify point 
sources with known objects; and (4) probe dark matter and the extra 
galactic background light in the early universe. 

Launch Date: June 2008. 

Date Mission Operations Began: August 2008. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* October 2008 – Identified the first pulsars shining only in gamma 
rays; 
* February 2010 – Made the most precise measurement of the high-energy 
cosmic-ray electron spectrum; 
* March 2010 – Identified best astrophysical limits on some types of 
dark matter; 
* September 2011 – Released its second catalog of objects, producing 
an inventory of 1,873 objects shining with the highest-energy form of 
light. 

Gravity Recovery and Interior laboratory (GRAIL): 

Mission Objectives: Determine the structure of the lunar interior from 
crust to core, advance our understanding of the thermal evolution of 
the Moon, and extend our knowledge gained from the Moon to other 
terrestrial-type planets. 

Launch Date: September 2011. 

Date Mission Operations Began: October 2011. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* September 2011 – Completed pre-lunar orbit insertion spacecraft and 
payload checkout activities; 
* October 2011 – Started operations; 
* December 2011/January 2012 – Entered lunar orbit. 

Herschel: 

Mission Objectives: Seek to discover how the first galaxies formed and 
how they evolved to give rise to present day galaxies like our own. 

Launch Date: May 2009. 

Date Mission Operations Began: November 2009. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* April 2011 – Revealed an intricate network of filamentary structure, 
with new stars forming at locations where filaments intersect each 
other; 
* August 2011 – Identified new molecules in interstellar clouds, 
including molecular oxygen; 
* September 2011 – Detected water in the ring system of Saturn, which 
is likely coming from “volcanoes” on Saturn’s moon, Enceladus; 
* October 2011 – Demonstrated that the heavy water to normal water 
ratio in the Hartley 2 Kuiper Belt comet is identical to that found in 
Earth’s oceans. 

Juno: 

Mission Objectives: Improve our understanding of the origin and 
evolution of Jupiter. 

Launch Date: August 2011. 

Date Mission Operations Began: September 2011. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* August 2011 – Deployed solar panel; 
* August 2011 – Conducted low voltage instrument check out; 
* September 2011 – Started operations; 
* December 2011 – Scheduled to complete high voltage instrument check 
out. 

Kepler: 

Mission Objective: Discover Earth-like planets in orbit around stars 
in our galaxy. 

Launch Date: March 2009. 

Date Mission Operations Began: May 2009. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* January 2011 – Discovered first rocky planet outside our solar 
system; 
* February 2011 – Identified 1,235 planet candidates since mission 
began; 
* February 2011 – Discovered the most compact planetary system; 
* September 2011 – Identified the first planet to orbit two stars. 

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO): 

Mission Objective: Orbit the moon for one year measuring lunar 
topography, resources, temperatures, and radiation. 

Launch Date: June 2009. 

Date Mission Operations Began: September 2009. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* August 2010 – Discovered evidence of geologically recent tectonic 
activity on the Moon; 
* September 2010 – Made 4-billion precise measurements of lunar 
topography, developing highly accurate maps for lunar science and 
exploration; 
* October 2010 – Discovered the coldest places in the solar system are 
at the lunar pole; 
* July 2011 – Identified a far-side lunar volcano. 

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO): 

Mission Objective: Understand the solar variations that influence life 
on Earth and humanity’s technological systems. 

Launch Date: February 2010. 

Date Mission Operations Began: May 2010. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* June 2011 – Spotted the iconic surfer's wave rolling through the 
atmosphere of the sun, providing insight into how energy moves through 
the corona; 
* August 2011 – Detected nascent sunspots deep below the solar surface 
before they are visible to the human eye; 
* September 2011 – Discovered some solar flares have a "late phase 
flare" some minutes to hours later that has never before been fully 
observed and that pumps more energy into space than previously 
realized. 

Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): 

Mission Objective: Designed to map the sky in infrared light and 
search for the nearest and coolest stars, the origins of stellar and 
planetary systems, the most luminous galaxies in the universe, and 
most main-belt asteroids larger than 3 kilometers. 

Launch Date: December 2009. 

Date Mission Operations Began: January 2010. 

Significant Accomplishments: 
* July 2010 – Completed survey on the entire sky; 
* July 2011 – Discovered first Earth Trojan asteroid—those that share 
an orbit with a planet near stable points in front of or behind the 
planet; 
* August 2011 – Identified the coldest class of stars, known as Y 
dwarfs; 
* September 2011 – Found more than 90 percent of the largest near-
Earth asteroids (greater than 1 km). 

[End of section] 

Appendix VI: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Cristina Chaplain, (202) 512-4841 or chaplainc@gao.gov: 

Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact named above, Shelby S. Oakley, Assistant 
Director; Jessica M. Berkholtz; Richard A. Cederholm; Laura Greifner; 
Cheryl M. Harris; Jeffrey L. Hartnett; Kristine R. Hassinger; Amanda 
R. Parker; Kenneth E. Patton; Ryan Stott; Roxanna T. Sun; and Jade A. 
Winfree made key contributions to this report. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] In June 2011, NASA began the process for closing out the 
Constellation program, which included the Ares I and Orion projects. 
This process included identifying those Constellation program elements 
that would be transitioned for use on the new Space Launch System and 
Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle programs. 

[2] See Explanatory Statement, 155 Cong. Rec. H1653, 1824-25 (daily 
ed., Feb. 23, 2009), to the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009, Pub. L. 
No. 111-8. In this report, we refer to these projects as major 
projects rather than large-scale projects as this is the term used by 
NASA. 

[3] NASA is required to report to Congress if the development cost of 
a program is likely to exceed the baseline estimate by 15 percent or 
more, or if a milestone is likely to be delayed by 6 months or more. 
51 U.S.C. § 30104(e). 

[4] GAO, Best Practices: Using a Knowledge-Based Approach to Improve 
Weapon Acquisition, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-386SP] (Washington, D.C.: January 
2004). 

[5] GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Key Decisions to Be Made on Future 
Combat System, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-376] 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 15, 2007); Defense Acquisitions: Improved 
Business Case Key for Future Combat System's Success, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-564T] (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 4, 
2006); NASA: Implementing a Knowledge-Based Acquisition Framework 
Could Lead to Better Investment Decisions and Project Outcomes, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-218] (Washington, D.C.: 
Dec. 21, 2005); and NASA's Space Vision: Business Case for Prometheus 
1 Needed to Ensure Requirements Match Available Resources, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-242] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 
2005). 

[6] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-242]. 

[7] NASA defines the formulation phase as the identification of how 
the program or project supports the agency's strategic goals; the 
assessment of feasibility, technology, concepts, and performance of 
trade studies; risk assessment and possible risk mitigations and 
continuous risk management processes; team building, development of 
operations concepts and acquisition strategies; establishment of high-
level requirements and success criteria; the preparation of plans, 
budgets, and schedules essential to the success of a program or 
project; and the establishment of control systems to ensure 
performance to those plans and alignment with current agency 
strategies. NASA Interim Directive (NID) NM 7120-97 for NASA 
Procedural Requirements (NPR) 7120.5D, paragraph 1.5.1(a) (Sept. 28, 
2011) (Hereinafter cited as NID for NPR 7120.5D (Sept. 28, 2011)). 

[8] The implementation phase is defined as the execution of approved 
plans for the development and operation of the program or project, and 
the use of control systems to ensure performance to approved plans and 
requirements and continued alignment with the agency's strategic 
goals. NID for NPR 7120.5D, paragraph 1.5.1(c) (Sept. 28, 2011). 

[9] According to NID for NPR 7120.5D, Table 2-4 (Sept. 28, 2011), the 
PDR evaluates the completeness/consistency of the planning, technical, 
and cost/schedule baselines developed during formulation. It assesses 
compliance of the preliminary design with applicable requirements, and 
determines if the project is sufficiently mature to begin the final 
design and fabrication phase. 

[10] The agency baseline commitment is the integrated set of 
requirements, cost, schedule, technical content, and an agreed-to 
joint confidence level that forms the basis for NASA's commitment with 
OMB and Congress. NID for NPR 7120.5D, Appendix A (Sept. 28, 2011). 

[11] According to NID for NPR 7120.5D, Table 2-4 (Sept. 28, 2011), the 
CDR evaluates the integrity of the project design and its ability to 
meet mission requirements, with appropriate margins and acceptable 
risk, within defined project constraints, including available 
resources. It determines if the design is appropriately mature to 
continue with the final design and fabrication phase. 

[12] The system integration review (SIR) evaluates the readiness of 
the project and associated supporting infrastructure to begin system 
assembly, integration, and test. SIR evaluates whether the remaining 
project development can be completed within available resources and 
determines if the project is sufficiently mature to begin phase D, 
where test and integration activities occur. NID for NPR 7120.5D, 
Table 2-4 (Sept. 28, 2011). 

[13] The life-cycle cost estimate for LADEE does not include $65.3 
million for the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration being 
developed by the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. 

[14] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278], (Washington, D.C.: February 
2011). 

[15] GAO, NASA: Implementing a Knowledge-Based Acquisition Framework 
Could Lead to Better Investment Decisions and Project Outcomes, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-218] (Washington, D.C.: 
Dec. 21, 2005). 

[16] GAO, Additional Cost Transparency and Design Criteria Needed for 
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Projects, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-364R] (Washington, 
D.C.: Mar. 3, 2011). 

[17] We based our cost and schedule analysis on the 15 projects that 
were in the implementation phase of the project life cycle during the 
course of our review. NASA did not provide formal cost and schedule 
baselines for the six projects in formulation, citing that the 
estimates are preliminary. Baselines are established when the project 
transitions to implementation. 

[18] For purposes of our analysis, cost or schedule growth is 
significant if it exceeds the thresholds that trigger reporting to 
Congress under the law. The thresholds are development cost growth of 
15 percent or more from the baseline cost estimate or a milestone 
delay of 6 months or more beyond the baseline schedule estimate. 51 
U.S.C. § 30104(e). 

[19] For this analysis, we examined each project's largest contract 
with a value of $20 million or more at award. The Aquarius, LADEE, and 
MSL projects were not included because they are in-house development 
projects either at a NASA center or at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory--
a federally funded research and development center. 

[20] Appendix IV provides a description of the metrics used to assess 
technology maturity. 

[21] NASA Procedural Requirements 7123.1A, NASA Systems Engineering 
Processes and Requirements, Appendix G, paragraph G.19(b) (Mar. 26, 
2007). 

[22] One project that did not meet the criteria was no longer included 
in our review--Glory--and another project--SMAP--held its preliminary 
design review, but did not meet the criteria. 

[23] We were unable to assess design stability for the SOFIA project 
as NASA has lost this data. According to project officials, the 
project documentation did not transfer in its entirety from Ames 
Research Center to Dryden Flight Research Center. 

[24] Engineering drawings are considered to be a good measure of the 
demonstrated stability of a product's design because the drawings 
represent the language used by engineers to communicate to the 
manufacturers the details of a new product design--what it looks like, 
how its components interface, how it functions, how to build it, and 
what critical materials and processes are required to fabricate and 
test it. Once the design of a product is finalized, the drawing is 
"releasable." 

[25] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-364R]; GAO, NASA: 
Issues Implementing the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-216T] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 1, 
2010); [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-218]. 

[26] A request for action is a formal written request sponsored by the 
review panel asking for additional information or action by the 
project team. It is generally developed as a result of insufficient 
safety, technical, or programmatic information being available at the 
time of the review. 

[27] NASA's approach to mitigating a launch vehicle's risk is through 
development of a launch vehicle certification process, which is laid 
out in NASA Policy Directive 8610.7D, Launch Services Risk Mitigation 
Policy for NASA-Owned and/or NASA-Sponsored Payloads/Missions (Jan. 
31, 2008). 

[28] While many Delta II launch vehicle components are no longer in 
production, NASA decided to include the five remaining Delta II launch 
vehicles on its launch services contract in September 2011. The Delta 
II launch vehicle had not been included on NASA's Launch Services II 
contract when it was awarded in September 2010. 

[29] See 51 U.S.C. § 50134. 

[30] GAO, Space and Missile Defense Acquisitions: Periodic Assessment 
Needed to Correct Parts Quality Problems in Major Programs, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-404] (Washington, D.C.: 
Jun. 24, 2011). 

[31] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-278]. 

[32] NASA Policy Directive 1000.5A, Policy for NASA Acquisition, 
paragraph 1(h)(3) (Jan. 15, 2009). 

[33] This is the point on the joint cost and schedule probability 
distribution where there is a 70 percent probability that the project 
will be completed at or lower than the estimated amount and at or 
before the projected schedule. NASA Policy Directive 1000.5A, Policy 
for NASA Acquisition, paragraph 1(h)(1)(a) (Jan. 15, 2009). 

[34] This funding refers to the amount provided to the project office 
in order to execute the project. NASA Policy Directive 1000.5A, Policy 
for NASA Acquisition, paragraph 1(h)(2) (Jan. 15, 2009). 

[35] GPM also prepared a JCL, but NASA officials told us the project 
has since gone through a replan and will complete another JCL to 
support the fiscal year 2013 budget submission. 

[36] American National Standards Institute/Electronic Industries 
Alliance Standard, Earned Value Management Systems, ANSI/EIA-748-B-
2007 approved July 9, 2007. 

[37] GAO, Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide: Best Practices for 
Developing and Managing Capital Program Costs, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-3SP] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 2009). 

[38] These missions include Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 
(ICESat-2), Soil Moisture Active and Passive, and Solar Probe Plus. 

[39] Because of changes in NASA's accounting structure, its historical 
cost data are relatively inconsistent. As such, we used then-year 
dollars to report data consistent with the data NASA reported to us. 

[40] Some projects reported that their spacecraft would be ready for 
launch sooner than the date that the launch authority could provide 
actual launch services. In these cases, we used the actual launch date 
for our analysis rather than the date that the project reported 
readiness. 

[41] According to NASA officials, projects that were in formulation at 
the time of the agency's 2007 revision of its project management 
policy are required to comply with that policy. Projects that had 
already entered implementation at the time of the revision were 
directed to implement those requirements that would not adversely 
affect the project's cost and schedule baselines. 

[42] In our calculation for the percentage of total number of drawings 
projected for release, we used the number of drawings released at the 
critical design review as a fraction of the total number of drawings 
projected, including where a growth in drawings occurred. So, the 
denominator in the calculation may have been larger than what was 
projected at the critical design review. We believe that this more 
accurately reflected the design stability of the project. 

[End of section] 

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