NASA Cancels Key Artemis Program Elements Due to Cost Overruns and Delays

Three months ago, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman announced the space agency was making a major pivot from building a space station in lunar orbit to a base on the surface. This “Ignition” event followed an earlier announcement in which NASA also said it was ending development of a new upper stage for its Space Launch System rocket.

In the aftermath of these decisions, there was some grumbling—mostly from contractors involved with the programs—that NASA was foolishly walking away from nearly complete hardware that the space agency needed for its Artemis Program.

Isaacman said these programs were not essential for landing humans on the Moon and added that they had cost far more than originally budgeted and had been subjected to years of delays. Moreover, they were still not ready.

“For too long we tried to satisfy every stakeholder,” he said during the Ignition event in March. “Billions of dollars wasted. Years lost. Hardware that never launched. Fewer flagship science missions. And fewer astronauts in space, which means fewer kids dressing up as astronauts for Halloween. I don’t like it. The president doesn’t like it. The American people have waited long enough.”

Elements reviewed by inspector general

On Wednesday, NASA’s Office of the Inspector General prepared a memorandum on the elements of the Artemis Program that NASA was canceling as its focus shifted to the Moon’s surface. These were:

Exploration Upper Stage, an upgrade for the Space Launch System rocket

Universal Stage Adapter, which links the Orion spacecraft to the Exploration Upper Stage

Mobile Launcher 2, a larger launch tower for the upgraded Space Launch System rocket

Habitation and Logistics Outpost, a habitation module for the Lunar Gateway

The memorandum notes that each of these projects has experienced substantial cost increases and numerous delays over the last decade.

“Over the course of their life cycles, the combined contract values for these efforts ballooned from nearly $2.8 billion to $5.9 billion and NASA extended their contracted delivery dates by up to seven years,” states the report by the inspector general. “However, our projections indicate that if NASA allowed work to continue to completion, the systems would have cost more and taken longer than what was on contract.”

In a written response to the report, the chief of NASA’s Human Spaceflight Directorate, Lori Glaze, said the data in the memorandum support NASA’s decision to cancel these programs earlier this year.

“NASA notes that the challenges summarized in the memorandum—cost growth, schedule slips, contractor performance issues, and evolving mission requirements—reinforce the rationale behind the decisions publicly announced during Ignition Day to streamline the Artemis architecture, modernize acquisition practices, and align programs with the nation’s objectives for sustained lunar presence,” Glaze wrote.

That’s an expensive stage adapter you’ve got there

The least expensive of the four contracts, for the Universal Stage Adapter, is perhaps the most illustrative. NASA contracted with Dynetics in June 2017 to design, test, and build this piece of spaceflight hardware. Made largely of composites, the adapter weighed 9,650 pounds (4.3 metric tons) and stood 33 feet (10 meters) tall.

The original contract awarded to Dynetics totaled $131 million, to which NASA later added $9 million for a payload separation system. At the time the program was canceled earlier this year, the contract value had grown to $353 million, with a delivery date delayed to September 2028. The inspector general’s report projected that the project would likely cost $497 million and not be ready until May 2030.

To be clear: NASA was likely going to pay half a billion dollars for a relatively straightforward stage adaptor. This doesn’t have propulsion or anything like that on board. Also, for some unfathomable reason, it was likely to take 13 years to build.

Another interesting note from the report is that the inspector general did not believe the Lunar Gateway, based on delays with the Habitation and Logistics Outpost, would have been operational until at least 2032. Ars reported last week that NASA formally asked Northrop Grumman to stop work on this module.