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Thursday, August 29, 2024

Artemis/SLS Late and Over Budget Again?

From the department of repetition department.  

The new Mobile Launcher Project, ML-2, for Artemis program has just been reviewed by the Office of the Inspector General at NASA. Let's just say they found nothing unusual; it's all costing far more than bid and being set for delivery far later than the contract first required. 

The OIG report highlights significant cost overruns and delays. Initially projected to cost $383 million with delivery by March 2023, the project's cost has now run to an estimated $1.8 billion. The OIG believes the final cost could yet grow to $2.7 billion — more than six times the initial cost estimate — by the time contractor Bechtel delivers ML-2. Delivery is now expected in September 2027.

Bechtel was awarded the cost-plus contract in 2019. The company has struggled with technical challenges, including issues with steel fabrication and weight management of the giant ground support structure, according to the report.

Mobile Launcher 2 is required to haul the upgraded, larger and heavier SLS Block 1B rocket to the pad, starting with NASA's Artemis 4 mission. The structure includes a base platform and a tower with various systems for fueling, power and crew access.

This isn't exactly a new problem, although it's a new Mobile Launcher. The same things happened with the ML-1 project. I posted my first report on that back in March of 2020. My first post on the ML-2 was a little over two years later in June of 2022. At that time, it was projected that original contract award of $383 million would grow to $960 million. Now, a little over two years later, we see the cost is almost double that growth estimate of $960 million - it's $1.8 billion - and expected to grow to $2.7  billion by delivery. Which is 4-1/2 years later than the contract.

The ML-1 is being left alone for the remaining Block 1 SLS missions and Block 1B is what we're talking about here. This image shows the differences between the two.  

Image from NASA Office of the Inspector General in the 2022 piece here. Image credit: NASA OIG

The changes were required just to add the Exploration Upper Stage (EUS) to the SLS stack. The development of the EUS isn't done, either.

If anything is going to kill NASA, it's things like this. 


EDIT 8/30/24 1115 AM ET to Add: Ars Technica's Rocket Report this week adds this Fun Fact on the price of the ML-2: (the $2.7 billion) cost is nearly twice the funding it took to build the largest structure in the world, the Burj Khalifa, which is seven times taller. 

It might not be a totally fair comparison since the Burj Khalifa doesn't need to handle tons of cryogenic fuels  or stand up to millions of pounds of thrust in fire, but it has to do things the ML-2 doesn't.



8 comments:

  1. Silly me, I was thinking it was already built.

    Could they not have built one platform that could support both rockets, and possibly others? Or make it modular so it could be modified? That's above my pay grade.

    They put the Saturn IB on a pedestal to use the Saturn V platform for Pete's sake.

    But, to quote that guy from Contact, why buy one when you can have two for twice the price?

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  2. Give the contract to SpaceX, they'll innovate the living dog-poop out of it. But, no...

    Seriously, as Steve said above, build 1 launcher that fits all versions. Work the kinks out. I's not like, with the pace of the SLS, you actually need 2 or more platforms.

    In comparison, NASA had 3 platforms built for the Saturn system, to be used with 2 crawlers, in a building designed for 4 building slots for the Saturn system. And they used all the components because they were actually launching on a relatively fast pace. Interesting video from 1966 of the construction of the VAB, the launch towers and the control building - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOmBg52a5Q0

    Compare that with the construction of 'new' equipment and facilities....

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    Replies
    1. This MLP, as well as the one they are using now ARE the MLPs from Saturn.
      As are the crawlers. KSC is at the tail end of the stick, and gets whatever leftovers are available after the development centers - JSC and MSFC - are funded.

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    2. Mea cowpie. According to Wikipedia:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_launcher_platform

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    3. No problem. We all miss one.

      I almost ran that picture last night and thought the hardware looked a little too good for that. It can be really tough to judge from a snapshot.

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    4. The Crawler is the same. The rest of it, not so much.

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    5. ML1 is built on the same hardware as well. Modified heavily to accommodate the vehicle differences.

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