Space Station

As a partner in the international space station, Russia agreed to provide various equipment, from the service module to progress vehicles to reboost the station to dry cargo. Russia's funding problems, however, have delayed delivery of the service module and have raised questions about Russia's ability to support the station during and after assembly. NASA has prepared a contingency plan in case the service module experiences further delays and the Russians do not provide the progress vehicles for reboosting the station. NASA estimates that it will cost $1.2 billion to protect against Russian nonperformance. Despite the contingency plan, NASA lacks an approved overall contingency plan to deal with such issues as the late delivery or loss of critical hardware. NASA is satisfied that Russian quality assurance standards are acceptable. However, the service module's inability to meet debris protection requirements is a potential safety issue. Despite efforts to control cost growth, pressures on the program's budget continue to mount. NASA's cost estimates assume assembly completion in 2004--a deadline that the agency acknowledges is ambitious. If the schedule is not met, total program costs for the U.S. part of the station would rise further. The prime contract has had significant cost overruns and schedule delays, and the nonprime portion of the program--activities related to science facilities and ground and vehicle operations--are also rising. In 1994, the nonprime component of the program's development budget was $8.5 billion; today, it is more than $12.4 billion.

GAO noted that: (1) Russia's funding problems have delayed delivery of the Service Module--the first major Russian-funded component--and raised questions about its ability to support the station during and after assembly; (2) NASA is implementing a multi-faceted contingency plan to mitigate the risk of further delay of the Service Module and the possibility that the Russians will not provide Progress vehicles for reboosting the station; (3) the first step of this plan includes the development of the U.S.-built Interim Control Module and modifications to the Russian-built and U.S.-financed Functional Cargo Block; (4) in the second step, NASA is developing its own permanent reboosting capability; (5) NASA's plan also includes payments to the Russian Space Agency to complete near-term work on the Service Module, and Progress and Soyuz space vehicles; (6) although NASA has a contingency plan to mitigate Russian nonperformance, it does not have an approved overall contingency plan to address issues such as late delivery or loss of critical hardware; (7) the agency acknowledges that the lack of such a plan is a program risk item; (8) according to program officials, the higher priority risk items will ultimately be costed, and the final contingency plan should be approved later this year; (9) NASA is satisfied that Russian quality assurance standards are acceptable; (10) however, the Service Module's inability to meet debris protection requirements is a potential safety issue; (11) in addition, NASA and the Russian Space Agency will have to work together to address other safety issues such as improving fire protection and reducing noise levels; (12) the prime contract has had significant cost overruns and schedule delays; (13) the prime contractor's estimate of overrun at completion has been increased several times and stands at $986 million; (14) at the same time, the costs of the nonprime portion of the program--activities related to science facilities and ground and vehicle operations--are also increasing, due largely to added scope and schedule slippage; (15) in 1994, the nonprime component of the program's development budget was $8.5 billion; today, it is over $12.4 billion; (16) the agency has begun to subject the nonprime area to increased scrutiny; (17) also, recognizing the inadequacy of the risk database, the Program Risk Assessment Board was directed to scrutinize all existing risks for cost impacts; and (18) these actions could potentially improve the agency's ability to manage future cost growth.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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