NASA IG Blasts Boeing on Block 1B

NASA’s Office of Inspector General issued a highly critical report today on Boeing’s development of an upgraded version of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, Block 1B, and NASA’s oversight of the program. Block 1B will be able to launch much more mass to the Moon and is needed beginning with the 2028 Artemis IV mission. The OIG is skeptical that the date is achievable and estimates the cost will rise from $5 billion to $5.7 billion.

SLS is the rocket NASA is using to send astronauts back to the Moon, NASA’s biggest rocket since the Saturn V that sent Apollo astronauts there in the 1960s and 1970s. The first and only launch so far, Artemis I, in November-December 2022, was an uncrewed flight test. Earlier this year the dates for Artemis II, the crewed flight test, and Artemis III, the first landing of astronauts on the Moon since Apollo, slipped to September 2025 and September 2026, respectively.

The vehicle consists of a core stage, two side-mounted solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and an upper stage. Boeing is the SLS prime contractor and builds the core stage for the current version, Block 1, powered by four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines that were originally used for the space shuttle. Northrop Grumman supplies the SRBs, also derived from those used for the shuttle. The United Launch Alliance provides the upper stage, ICPS, based on one designed for its Delta IV rocket that uses one Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 engine. Lockheed Martin builds the Orion capsule that houses the crew.

NASA needs a  more capable version, Block 1B, to support long-term Artemis plans starting with Artemis IV in 2028.

For Block 1B, Boeing will replace ULA as the upper stage provider with its Exploration Upper Stage or EUS powered by four RL10 engines instead of one. The additional thrust enables the Block 1B to send 40 percent more mass to the Moon, but it also means Block 1B is much heavier so a new Mobile Launcher is needed to move it from the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center to the launch pad. Bechtel is the prime contractor for Mobile Launcher-2.

Today’s OIG report is the latest in a long series of reports from the OIG and the Government Accountability Office detailing cost overruns and schedule delays over the years for SLS and other aspects of NASA’s efforts since 2011 to return astronauts to the Moon. In 2019, it was named Artemis after Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology.

GAO’s most recent report came out just last week outlining concerns about the Gateway space station NASA and four international partners are building to orbit the Moon and serve as a transition point for astronauts between Earth and the lunar surface.

Like the GAO report, this report focuses on Artemis IV, a complicated mission that requires the extra thrust EUS will provide to deliver an additional module — the International Habitat or I-Hab — to the Gateway. The first two Gateway modules, HALO and PPE, are supposed to be there first. Orion and I-Hab will dock with them along with a SpaceX Starship Human Landing System to take two crew members down to the lunar surface and back, and a SpaceX Deep Space Logistics vehicle to deliver supplies and remove trash. All that on top of it being the first launch of Block 1B.

GAO is skeptical HALO and PPE will be ready for 2028, and the OIG is similarly dubious about EUS and Block 1B. OIG also estimates the Block 1B cost will increase from $5 billion to $5.7 billion. Boeing’s EUS contract alone has grown from “$962 million in 2017 to nearly $2.8 billion through 2028.”

The OIG concluded that Boeing’s work on EUS at the Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, Louisiana does not meet SAE International’s AS9110D standards for quality management systems. NASA uses the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) to oversee the work and it has issued a significant number of Corrective Action Reports (CARs).

“From September 2021 to September 2023, DCMA issued Boeing 71 Level I and II CARs, as well as a draft Level III CAR. According to DCMA officials, this is a high number of CARs for a space flight system at this stage in development and reflects a recurring and degraded state of product quality control. Boeing’s process to address deficiencies to date has been ineffective, and the company has generally been nonresponsive in taking corrective actions when the same quality control issues reoccur.” — NASA OIG

The OIG cites a lack of trained and experienced aerospace workers and Boeing’s “ineffective” efforts to provide them with the necessary training and work orders to avoid errors.

The OIG is also critical of NASA’s management of the Block 1B program, especially the decision not to establish an  Agency Baseline Commitment (ABC) for cost and schedule until after it passed a milestone called a Critical Design Review (CDR) instead of before. The ABC was completed only in December 2023 “after 10 years of development with no baseline and much later in the project life cycle than NASA’s standard practice,” giving stakeholders limited visibility into the project’s cost and schedule.

Despite all the problems with the rocket, the OIG does not consider Block 1B itself to be a “critical path” item for meeting the Artemis IV launch date because development of the Mobile Launcher-2 (ML-2) and I-Hab are driving the schedule to a greater extent. The OIG has been highly critical of Bechtel’s work on ML-2 as has NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

“Although development of Block 1B is not on the Artemis IV critical path, further delays in earlier Artemis missions combined with potential EUS delivery delays and pending development milestones suggest the Artemis IV launch, planned for September 2028, may be delayed as well,” the report says, explaining in a footnote that ML-2 “is the critical path with the completion of the International Habitat as the secondary driver.”

The OIG makes four recommendations and NASA concurred with three of them. NASA agreed to coordinate with Boeing to develop an AS9100D compliant quality management system, perform a detailed cost overrun analysis on Boeing’s EUS development contract, and coordinate with DCMA to ensure Boeing complies with Earned Value Management System clauses. NASA did not agree to institute financial penalties for Boeing’s noncompliance with quality control standards because they consider that as part of their award fee evaluation process under the existing contract. (NASA’s response is published as an appendix.)