Agency head dismayed by new delay, but “Senate Launch System” has strong political support.
Technicians at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans moved the largest piece of structural test hardware for the Space Launch System in December. By Christian Davenport and Christian Davenport Reporter covering the defense and space industries Email Bio Follow Joel Achenbach Joel Achenbach Reporter covering science and politics Email Bio March 22 at 8:39 AM Boeing senior executives arrived at NASA headquarters two weeks ago for what they knew would be a tense meeting.
In the space world, Bridenstine’s announcement set off shock waves. It not only signaled a potentially radical change in NASA’s plans to return to the moon, but was a major blow to NASA’s flagship rocket program and its main contractor, Boeing. The announcement came as the company has been under scrutiny for the way it has handled the crashes of two of its commercial airplanes that killed 346 people.
“This is a rocket that has been looking for a mission,” said Lori Garver, who served as NASA’s deputy administrator under President Barack Obama. “We’re late and I completely own that, but we are dialed in now and the team is producing extremely well,” Shannon said. “I have high confidence that we’re going to come out with an amazing capability by the end of the year, and I can’t wait to get to that point.”In 2017, the agency’s watchdog reported in an audit that NASA had spent more than $15 billion on SLS, Orion, and the ground systems needed between 2012 and 2016. And it estimated that the total would reach up to $23 billion.
So when the NASA administrator floated the idea of sidelining the rocket, Shelby released a statement saying: “While I agree that the delay in the SLS launch schedule is unacceptable, I firmly believe that SLS should launch the Orion.”The next day, Bridenstine reiterated his support for the SLS program in a blog post, saying the agency is “committed to building and flying SLS.
Although the administration terminated the moon plan, it found it politically impossible to kill all of the projects already pouring billions of dollars into coffers of major aerospace contractors. With Constellation’s moon mission canceled, the precise purpose — the actual destinations — of the SLS and Orion became murky. The SLS clearly existed to launch Orion. But to where?
By contrast, NASA officials have said that each launch of the SLS, a far more powerful rocket, would cost about $1 billion.
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