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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 07 2021, @09:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the Now-that's-just-sick! dept.

Pandemic to cost NASA up to $3 billion

A NASA audit concluded that costs imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic on the agency could reach $3 billion, with several major science and exploration programs accounting for much of that cost.

A March 31 report by the NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) stated that the agency expects that the pandemic's effects on the agency, ranging from closed facilities to disrupted supply chains, to be nearly $3 billion. Of that, about $1.6 billion came from 30 major programs and projects, defined by NASA as those with a total cost of at least $250 million.

[...] The project with the largest cost increase in the report is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, formerly known as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). It reported $3 million in costs because of the pandemic in fiscal year 2020, but estimates nearly $400 million in additional impacts in future years. The mission has a lifecycle cost of $3.9 billion.

[...] The Space Launch System had the second-highest cost increase in terms of overall dollars, at $363 million, of which $8 million was in fiscal year 2020 and $355 million in fiscal years 2021 through 2023. A three-month delay in the first SLS mission, Artemis 1, along with "rephrasing production" each accounted for about one-third of the costs. The rest came from "surge costs" to compress schedules as well as the costs of facility shutdowns.

The Orion spacecraft suffered $146 million in costs, including $5 million in fiscal year 2020 and $66 million in fiscal year 2021. Because the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 1 mission was nearly complete at the time the pandemic hit, the largest effects were on the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis 2 and 3 missions, both still in production. Those problems extended to Europe, with delays in the production of the European Service Module for the Artemis 2 Orion.


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:12AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:12AM (#1134636)

    Machinery was removed last summer.

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  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:21AM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:21AM (#1134638) Journal

    Yes, he added to the problem. That's in the past. Congress can still cut the losses, if they are interested.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @11:24AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @11:24AM (#1134729)

    Yeah, that 2002 Dell was *critical* to prevent COVID / BLM outrage / voter suppression.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:39PM (#1134761)

      Your news sources are omitting important details.