Text of Bolden Letter to Congress on Constellation Termination Liability

Text of Bolden Letter to Congress on Constellation Termination Liability

The text of the letter NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden sent to Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, and other Members of Congress yesterday is available here. The letter informs Congress that NASA is facing a shortfall in Constellation funding for FY2010 and is reprioritizing FY2010 activities. NASA also is reminding contractors again that they are responsible for managing all costs associated with the contracts, including potential termination costs.

The letter states that after taking into account potential termination costs and other constraints on Constellation’s FY2010 budget, the program is facing a $991 million shortfall for FY2010 and therefore NASA cannot continue all of its planned FY2010 activities. Otherwise the agency would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act (which essentially says that government agencies cannot spend money that they do not have). The letter states that the contractor workforce will be reduced by “30-60 percent, or 2,500-5,000, for the balance of the year.”

The letter lists the Constellation activities that will not be supported, or for which funding will be reduced, for the rest of FY2010 as follows:

  • “Ares: The program will generally provide no additional funding for the first stage
    contract, descope remaining contracts, and reduce support contractor levels.
  • “Orion: The program will adjust prime contract work, suspend planned
    procurements, and defer and reduce non-prime contract efIort.
  • “Ground Ops: The project scope will be reduced by $89 million. Reductions will
    be made in support contractor levels, task order scope and, operating cost. Effort
    will be made to preserve work to enable flight test strategy but with schedule
    impact.
  • “Mission Ops: The project scope will be reduced by $12 million. Reductions will
    be made in planned program content.
  • “Extra-Vehicular Activity: The program will delay the Preliminary Design
    Review for the prime suit, as well as reduce in prime and non-prime content.
  • “Program Integration: The project scope will be reduced by S31 million.
    Reductions will be made in support contractor levels.”

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