posted 11-14-2019 04:12 PM               

Boeing and SpaceX each face significant safety and technical challenges with parachutes, propulsion, and launch abort systems that need to be resolved prior to receiving NASA authorization to transport crew to the ISS. The complexity of these issues has already caused at least a 2-year delay in both contractors' development, testing, and qualification schedules and may further delay certification of the launch vehicles by an additional year.

Consequently, given the amount, magnitude, and unknown nature of the technical challenges remaining with each contractor's certification activities, CCP will continue to be challenged to establish realistic launch dates. Furthermore, final vehicle certification for both contractors will likely be delayed at least until summer 2020 based on the number of ISS and CCP certification requirements that remain to be verified and validated.

In order to optimize development timelines, NASA continues to accept deferrals or changes to components and capabilities originally planned to be demonstrated on each contractor's uncrewed test flights. Taken together, these factors may elevate the risk of a significant system failure or add further delays to the start of commercial crewed flights to the ISS.

While awaiting the start of commercial crew flights, NASA will likely experience a reduction in the number of USOS crew aboard the ISS from three to one beginning in spring 2020 given schedule delays in the development of Boeing and SpaceX space flight systems coupled with a reduction in the frequency of Soyuz flights. Options for addressing this potential crew reduction are limited but include purchasing additional Soyuz seats and extending the missions of USOS crewmembers.

However, these options may not be viable given the 3-year lead time required to manufacture a Soyuz vehicle; expiration of a waiver that permitted NASA to make payments to the Russian government; and astronaut health constraints. A reduction in the number of crew aboard the USOS to a single astronaut would limit crew tasks primarily to operations and maintenance, leaving little time for scientific research and technology demonstrations needed to advance NASA's future human space exploration goals.

In our examination of the CCP contracts, we found that NASA agreed to pay an additional $287.2 million above Boeing's fixed prices to mitigate a perceived 18-month gap in ISS flights anticipated in 2019 for the company's third through sixth crewed missions and to ensure the company continued as a second commercial crew provider. For these four missions, NASA essentially paid Boeing higher prices to address a schedule slippage caused by Boeing's 13-month delay in completing the ISS Design Certification Review milestone and due to Boeing seeking higher prices than those specified in its fixed price contract.

In our judgment, the additional compensation was unnecessary given that the risk of a gap between Boeing's second and third crewed missions was minimal when the Agency conducted its analysis in 2016. Furthermore, any presumed gap in commercial crew flights could have been addressed by the ISS Program's purchase of additional Soyuz seats. Nonetheless, we acknowledge the benefit of hindsight and appreciate the pressures faced by NASA managers at the time to keep the program on schedule to the extent possible.

However, even with that understanding and using CCP's own schedule analysis, we found NASA could have saved $144 million by paying a premium only for missions three and four to cover the perceived gap while buying missions five and six later at the lower fixed prices. Additionally, NASA started the payment on the third mission 1 year earlier than needed and therefore did not use $43 million of the lead time flexibility purchased. Accordingly, we question $187 million of these price increases as unnecessary costs.

Finally, given that NASA's objective was to address a potential crew transportation gap, we found that SpaceX was not provided an opportunity to propose a solution even though the company previously offered shorter production lead times than Boeing.

posted 11-16-2019 01:32 PM            

It could be that every little milestone is covered by the space press, so we're always aware of each hurdle. I don't thing the press covered the escape system tests with Mercury, Gemini or Apollo.

posted 11-18-2019 10:08 AM               

Boeing Statement Regarding OIG Report on NASA's Commercial Crew Program

In response to the Nov. 14 Office of the Inspector General report titled "NASA's Management of Crew Transportation to the International Space Station," Boeing today issued the following statement:

"We strongly disagree with the report's conclusions about CST-100 Starliner pricing and readiness, and we owe it to the space community and the American public to share the facts the Inspector General [IG] missed," said Jim Chilton, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space and Launch. "Each member of the Boeing team has a personal stake in the safety, quality and integrity of what we offer our customers, and since Day One, the Starliner team has approached this program with a commitment to design, develop and launch a vehicle that we and NASA can be proud of."

Specifically, Boeing offers the following responses to the main assertions:

Boeing's commitment to commercial transportation to ISS

• Boeing has made significant investments in the Commercial Crew program, and we are fully committed to flying the CST-100 Starliner and keeping the International Space Station crewed and operational. Any implication that we ever wavered in our participation in Commercial Crew is false.

"NASA overpaid Boeing to prepare for multiple crewed missions"

• Through fair and open negotiations with NASA in a competitive environment, we offered single-mission pricing for post-certification missions (PCMs) 3-6, thus enabling additional flexibility and schedule resiliency to enhance future mission readiness.

• This single-mission pricing for PCM 3-6 was included in the pricing table in the original contract. That original pricing table remains unchanged.

• Contrary to the conclusion in the IG report, Boeing contends that the benefits in shorter lead time and flexibility in adjusting launch dates are well worth the higher price in the table.

• We cut lead time to launch by two-thirds and doubled the launch rate for an overall price increase of only 5%.

• Boeing assumed more up-front financial risk and is helping NASA with critical decisions key to optimizing future ISS operations.

• Boeing now holds all the up-front mission costs, which NASA will not have to pay until after each PCM is officially ordered and given the Authority to Proceed (ATP).

$90 million per seat?

• Boeing rejects the average seat price assessment in the IG report.

• Boeing will fly the equivalent of a fifth passenger in cargo for NASA, so the per-seat pricing should be considered based on five seats rather than four.

• For proprietary, competitive reasons Boeing does not disclose specific pricing information, but we are confident our average seat pricing to NASA is below the figure cited.

• The report also fails to mention Starliner's superior value:
  • Starliner provides a fifth passenger seat or more cargo capacity at the customer's direction.

  • NASA crews have full vehicle control in all phases of spaceflight, including backup manual capability.

  • Starliner flies on the most reliable lifter in the business, an Atlas V modified for human spaceflight safety by people with actual experience in the domain.

  • The spacecraft touches back down to Earth on land, not a splashdown, something Boeing considers much safer.

  • Starliner astronauts train in Houston with Boeing and NASA working side-by-side in the former space shuttle and ISS training facilities.

Boeing vs. the competition

• Because of our history in spaceflight, we understood how difficult this program would be on a short timeline, and priced our offering accordingly.

• Boeing presented a development bid based on creating a safe and reliable orbital crewed space vehicle from scratch, while positioning our pricing to be sustainable long-term.

• By contrast, our competitor offered a crewed vessel based on a cargo vehicle designed for human rating, whose development had been funded for several years by NASA on a predecessor contract. That cargo vehicle had already flown multiple times at the time of the Commercial Crew awards.

• Boeing started development much later but attempted to achieve the same schedule, which is a more expensive development approach.

• Starliner development and flight prices incorporate the rigorous design, test and verification approach we proposed – leaving no stone unturned to ensure we deliver a quality vehicle and service to our customer.

• Change requests are considered case by case, but generally use a commercial pricing approach, which we see as aligned with NASA's policy objectives for the program.

• NASA remains the single buyer in this market, and therefore enjoys significant buying power, tempered only by their policy objectives.

• Through accepting our bid, NASA agreed we would be delivering them significant value with a spacecraft that meets the original requirement of landing on land, can expand to five passengers, and allows positive control by NASA's flight crews in all spaceflight phases.

"Technical challenges continue to impact the Commercial Crew program schedule"

• We have made excellent progress on all outstanding technical challenges since the OIG began collecting information for this report.

• We have retired nearly all possible risk ahead of our uncrewed and crewed flight tests. We are confident that we have designed and built a safe, quality system that meets NASA's requirements.

• In 2019, we completed:
  • Service module hot fire test, validating the performance of our propulsion system in both nominal and contingency scenarios.

  • All parachute qualification tests without a single test failure, demonstrating the resiliency of our parachute system even in dual-fault scenarios.

  • Discussions with NASA about our system led to our mutual agreement to perform even more tests and analysis, which validated our system as designed.

  • We are confident in the safety of our system, and we have proven through extensive testing that we have a robust design that has consistently performed above requirements, even in dual-fault scenarios.

  • Pad Abort Test, which was Starliner's first flight test and a near-flawless performance of our integrated propulsion and flight control systems in an abort case.

Certification

• We are working with our customer to achieve crew certification as soon as possible, but safety is our guiding principle and we will not fly our Crew Flight Test (CFT) before we are ready.

• Orbital Flight Test (OFT) is currently targeted for Dec. 17, and following a successful flight, we are well positioned to fly our first crew in early 2020.

• Certification depends on the timing and success of both of those flights.

• We are more than 99% done with Verification Closure Notices (VCNs) for OFT.

• There are a smaller number of CFT VCNs, and those are mostly reliant on OFT and Pad Abort Test data, the latter of which we are working on submitting right now.