Space Science

A combination of factors led to the cancellation of the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) program, which was developing spacecraft to observe comets and asteroids traveling through the solar system. In addition, the original scientific capabilities of the Cassini program, which plans a 1997 mission to study Saturn, have been pared back. First, a huge increase in estimated costs forced the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to drop an important experiment--the comet nucleus penetrator. Second, congressional budget cuts for fiscal years 1992 and 1993 prompted a two-year schedule extension and a significant boost in estimated costs. CRAF was canceled without thoroughly examining whether its scope and that of Cassini could have been reduced in order to preserve both missions. Even with the termination of CRAF, NASA doubts whether its future budgets can handle all of its planned ongoing projects. As a result, NASA has been restructuring the Cassini project to further reduce costs. The Cassini project is now meeting its new costs and schedule goals, and NASA plans to exceed its new science goals. Several factors still threaten Cassini's future, however, including uncertainties about whether a new, more powerful solid rocket motor will be ready in time for the spacecraft's launch.

GAO found that: (1) NASA has cancelled the CRAF project because of the large increase in the cost of one of its experiments, the deletion of some project experiments, and budget reductions that extended its launch schedule and significantly increased its costs; (2) NASA believes that its future budgets will not be sufficient to fund all of its planned and ongoing activities; (3) NASA has cancelled the CRAF project without determining whether the scope of the CRAF and Cassini projects could have been reduced to preserve both missions; (4) the CRAF cancellation has reduced NASA costs by 19.2 percent; (5) NASA has lost some foreign funding for spacecraft development because of the CRAF project cancellation; (6) NASA has restructured the Cassini project to reduce its costs in anticipation of future budget shortages; (7) the restructuring includes cancelling the development of a multimission spacecraft, which lessens its scientific capabilities and postpones the development of some flight software, ground control systems, and science operations capabilities; and (8) NASA is currently meeting the Cassini project's cost and schedule goals, but several factors such as the availability of a new solid rocket motor, further cost reductions, and launch delays could adversely affect the Cassini project's future capabilities.