NASA IG Wants Better Mishap Investigation Policy for Commercial Cargo Launches

The NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on Tuesday that praised NASA for some aspects of its management of the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with SpaceX, but reiterated earlier concerns about the independence of mishap investigations into these “commercial cargo” launch services.  NASA concurred with most, but not all, of the OIG’s recommendations.

The OIG report was prompted by the June 28, 2015 SpaceX CRS-7 (SpX-7) Falcon 9 rocket failure that was intended to send a Dragon spacecraft full of supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).  Among the $118 million in cargo that was lost was an International Docking Adapter, the first of two needed for future dockings of SpaceX and Boeing commercial crew vehicles. 

On the positive side, the OIG concluded that “NASA is effectively managing its commercial resupply contract with SpaceX to reduce cost and financial risk.”   It has “taken advantage of multiple mission pricing discounts” and negotiated “significant consideration” after the 2015 failure including reduced prices for five launches awarded thereafter (SpX-16 to SpX-20).

However, the report criticized NASA for not having “an official, coordinated, and consistent mishap investigation policy for commercial resupply launches, which could affect its ability to determine root cause of a launch failure and corrective action.”

The SpaceX cargo flights are commercial and regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), not NASA.  NASA purchases ISS cargo resupply services from SpaceX as well as Orbital ATK.  Orbital ATK also suffered a failure — the Orb-3 launch in October 2014.   Like SpaceX, those launches are regulated by the FAA.   FAA regulations determine how investigations are conducted when there is a launch failure of a commercial vehicle.   Under those regulations, the respective company itself is in charge.

NASA has its own mishap investigation procedures that require an independent review, but they do not apply to these commercially procured launch services.  The OIG earlier looked at the Orbital ATK failure and in Tuesday’s report on SpaceX reiterated its concerns “about the independence of contractor-led mishap investigations.”

SpaceX formed an Accident Investigation Team (AIT) in accordance with the FAA regulations composed of 11 SpaceX employees (one as chair) and one FAA employee.  Others from the FAA, NASA, the Air Force, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) were non-voting observers.  The AIT determined that the most probable cause was a failure of a strut in the second stage.  After reporting that finding to the FAA and fixing the problem, the Falcon 9 was approved to return to flight.  The first launch was for a commercial communications satellite company (Orbcomm), the second launch for the NASA-NOAA Jason-3 spacecraft, the third for a different commercial communications satellite company (SES), and the fourth a resupply mission to ISS, SpX-8.  All were successful.

Even though its own mishap investigation procedures do not apply, NASA is allowed under the CRS and other contracts to establish an independent review in addition to the FAA investigation. The OIG found “there were up to seven possible investigation authorities” NASA could invoke “depending on when the failure occurred and the extent of damage…”  In this case, since the next Falcon 9 launch for NASA was of the Jason-3 satellite, NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) set up a review under that contract authority.  Its findings were not as determinant as SpaceX’s, leaving questions about the ultimate root cause.

A key finding of the OIG report is that “[d]ue to a lack of standardization or NASA policy, the contractor and NASA investigations into the SPX-7 and Orb-3 failures had different scopes and produced varying findings and corrective actions.”  Orbital ATK’s Orb-3 investigation “used root cause analysis” that looked not only at technical issues, but programmatic and organizational as well.  NASA’s LSP investigation looked only at technical issues, the OIG said.

It recommends that NASA review its various authorities to ensure a coordinated, standardized approach.  NASA concurred.

How NASA determines what and how much cargo to put aboard
the SpaceX flights was another concern raised by the OIG, especially the International Docking Adapters (IDAs). The second IDA is now scheduled for the SpX-9 mission later
this year, but the replacement for the unit lost in 2015 (being built
from spare parts) will not be launched until February 2018, according to
the OIG report.  If current schedules hold, it will not arrive until
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner are in service. 
That could spell trouble if anything goes awry with the one Adapter that
will be available.  In its response to the OIG report, published in an appendix, NASA asserted that it “plans to have both IDAs available prior to first ISS direct handover mission and the first planned cargo docking mission under [the] CRS 2 [commercial cargo contract].

More broadly, the OIG recommended that NASA do a better job of quantifying and communicating the risks associated with the commercial cargo launches.   NASA did not agree with that one.  It asserted that its existing procedures provide adequate assessments of risk and communicate that risk to the appropriate people.