NASA Lunar Programs: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Analyses and Plans for Moon Landing
Fast Facts
In March 2019, the White House directed NASA to accelerate its plans to return humans to the moon by 2024—4 years earlier than NASA had planned.
To meet this new goal, NASA made some changes to its approach. But it is still pursuing an array of complex efforts, including a small platform in lunar orbit called the Gateway, where crew could transit to and from the moon. Some have questioned the path NASA is taking and NASA has not fully explained how it arrived at its plans. So we recommended that NASA document its rationale for these decisions.
We also recommended that NASA develop an official cost estimate for the 2024 lunar landing mission.
A Potential Configuration of the Systems Needed for 2024 Moon Landing
Illustration of components of potential moon landing system and the moon
Highlights
What GAO Found
To support accelerated plans to land astronauts on the moon by 2024—four years earlier than planned—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) quickly refocused its acquisition plans. In particular, NASA separated its lunar plans into two phases, with the first phase focused on the systems NASA identified to support the new timeline (see figure). One system, Gateway, includes three components—power and propulsion, habitation, and logistics—to form a small platform in lunar orbit.
Systems NASA Identified for the 2024 Moon Landing
NASA has begun making decisions related to requirements, cost, and schedule for programs, but is behind in taking these steps for the whole lunar mission:
NASA risks the discovery of integration challenges and needed changes late in the development process because it established some requirements for individual lunar programs before finalizing requirements for the overall lunar mission. NASA plans to take steps to mitigate this risk, such as by holding reviews to ensure that requirements align across programs, but has not yet defined these reviews or determined when they would occur.
NASA has made some decisions that will increase visibility into the costs and schedules for individual lunar programs, but does not plan to develop a cost estimate for the first mission. Cost estimates provide management with critical cost-risk information to improve control of resources. Without a cost estimate for this mission, Congress will not have insight into affordability and NASA will not have insight into monitoring total mission costs.
NASA conducted studies to inform its lunar plans, but did not fully assess a range of alternatives to these plans. GAO best practices state that analyzing alternatives provides a framework to help ensure that entities consistently and reliably select the alternative that best meets the mission need and justify agency decisions. Given NASA's schedule, conducting this analysis is no longer viable. Instead, NASA intends to create a summary of the studies that informed its lunar plans. However, it has not committed to a completion date. Without a documented rationale, NASA is ill-positioned to effectively communicate its decisions to stakeholders and facilitate a better understanding of its plans.
Why GAO Did This Study
In March 2019, the White House directed NASA to accelerate its plans to return humans to the moon by 4 years, to 2024. To accomplish a lunar landing, NASA is developing programs including a small platform in lunar orbit, known as Gateway, and a lunar lander. NASA plans to use the Space Launch System and Orion crew capsule—two programs with a history of cost growth and schedule delays—to launch and transport crew to Gateway.
The House Committee on Appropriations included a provision in its 2018 report for GAO to review NASA's proposed lunar-focused programs, including the Gateway program. GAO's report assesses (1) how NASA updated its lunar plans to support the accelerated 2024 landing timeline; (2) the extent to which NASA has made initial decisions about requirements, cost, and schedule for its lunar mission and programs; and (3) the extent to which NASA analyzed alternatives for its lunar plans, including the Gateway program. GAO analyzed NASA lunar mission and program documents, assessed NASA studies that informed NASA's lunar plans, and interviewed NASA officials.
Recommendations
GAO is making a total of 6 recommendations to NASA, including to define and schedule reviews that align requirements across lunar programs; create a cost estimate for the first lunar mission; and commit to a completion date and finalize a cohesive document outlining the rationale for selecting its current lunar plans. NASA concurred with the recommendations made in this report.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | The NASA Administrator should ensure that the NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations directs the Advanced Exploration Systems division to define and determine a schedule for synchronization reviews, including the role of the proposed Lunar Exploration Control Board, to help ensure that requirements between mission and program levels are reconciled. (Recommendation 1) |
NASA agreed with this recommendation and in September 2021, the Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) division held its first integrated synchronization review and defined a schedule for future reviews. The division plans to hold integrated synchronization reviews annually to help to ensure requirements between mission and program levels are reconciled. The chair of the AES control board-which defines and manages cost, schedule, technical, and risk baselines for the programs and Artemis missions the division manages-also chairs the integrated synchronization review, and other members of the board serve as review panel members.
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| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | The NASA Administrator should ensure that the NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations directs the Gateway program to conduct a joint cost and schedule confidence level at the program level for the Artemis III mission. (Recommendation 2) |
NASA agreed with this recommendation and took action to implement it. In December 2023, NASA approved cost and schedules baselines for its initial capability, which includes the Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics Outpost projects. NASA now plans to integrate the two modules on the ground and launch them together. The Gateway program conducted a joint cost and schedule confidence level (JCL) analysis to inform these baselines.
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| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | The NASA Administrator should ensure that the NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations directs the Gateway program to update its overall schedule for 2024 to add a KDP II to occur before system integration. (Recommendation 3) |
NASA agreed with this recommendation, but has not yet taken action on it. NASA officials stated that they would provide us with an update on potential plans for holding a review that would meet the intent of a system integration review and subsequent Key Decision Point (KDP) II review in March 2025. The program plans to complete a Gateway-level critical design-informed synchronization review no earlier than late 2024 before finalizing plans for subsequent reviews.
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| National Aeronautics and Space Administration |
Priority Rec.
The NASA Administrator should ensure that the NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations creates a life-cycle cost estimate for the Artemis III mission. (Recommendation 4) |
NASA agreed with the recommendation. Officials stated that NASA would provide a preliminary cost estimate for the Artemis III mission by the end of calendar year 2020. However, NASA has not yet created this cost estimate. NASA officials previously told us that a 5-year funding plan provided to Congress in September 2020 serves as the agency's cost estimate through the Artemis III mission, which was at the time planned for 2024. The officials stated that the agency would establish cost and schedule commitments for projects but not the overall mission. In March 2024 NASA told us that the agency has implemented a range of management and reporting tools to ensure transparency and accountability at the mission level for all stakeholders but that imposing a flight-by-flight cost assessment as a benchmark on individual Artemis missions could potentially hinder the success, innovation, and long-term sustainability of space missions. To fully implement this recommendation, NASA needs to develop a life-cycle cost estimate for the Artemis III lunar landing mission as a whole. This is because the 5-year funding plan includes costs outside of this mission, such as costs for the Artemis II mission. Similarly, project baseline commitments do not necessarily include the scope of work required for the Artemis III mission. For example, the SLS baseline commitment included a cost estimate only for the Artemis I mission. As a result, there is still no comprehensive Artemis III life-cycle cost estimate. Without an overall cost estimate for the Artemis III mission, decision makers have limited cost information to inform decisions on the overall lunar investment.
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| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | The NASA Administrator should ensure that the NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations directs the Advanced Exploration Systems division to commit to a completion date and finalize a cohesive document outlining the rationale for selecting its current lunar architecture and lunar programs. (Recommendation 5) |
NASA agreed with this recommendation and in spring 2023, released several documents that provided a rationale for its current lunar architecture and lunar programs. The agency finalized its Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives Development document in March 2023. The document outlines NASA's overarching Moon to Mars objectives, which will drive NASA's architecture, plans, and efforts in enabling sustained human presence and exploration throughout the solar system. In early 2023, the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate conducted an architectural concept review. During this review, NASA architecture teams analyzed how mission elements will function together to accomplish the Moon to Mars objectives. The first review focused on the architecture of early Artemis missions, or NASA's return to the Moon. It culminated in the release of an Architecture Definition Document in April 2023, which included the rationale for the current lunar architecture. At the same time, NASA released several white papers providing the rationale for developing the lunar Gateway and the selection of a lunar orbit, among other topics. The agency plans to conduct architecture concept reviews annually and update the Architecture Definition Document after each review. Future reviews will focus on later lunar missions and plans for human missions to Mars.
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| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | The NASA Administrator should ensure that the Office of the Chief Engineer determines under what conditions it is appropriate to complete an analysis of alternatives, particularly when there are multiple pathways—including architectures or programs—that NASA could pursue in the future, and document the justification for not completing an analysis. (Recommendation 6) |
NASA agreed with this recommendation and took actions to implement it. Between 2020 and 2023, the agency updated policy and guidance to clarify that that agency decision makers should review the results of an analysis of alternatives prior to making acquisition strategy decisions. More specifically, in July 2020, NASA updated its policy for acquisitions to require the mission directorate associate administrators to base acquisitions on realistic cost estimates and schedules, informed by an analysis of alternatives when appropriate. In November 2022, NASA updated its guidance for acquisition strategy meetings--a decision-making forum where senior agency management reviews and approves program and project acquisition strategies, such as make-or-buy decisions--to add that decision makers must review the results of an analysis of alternatives of at least two viable options to inform their decisions. In July 2023, NASA updated its formulation authorization document template within its space flight program and project management policy for programs to include a description of plans for conducting analyses of alternatives for selecting the mission architecture and acquisition strategies. It also states that if the program does not plan to conduct analyses of alternatives, it should document the justification for not doing so. Both the acquisition strategy meeting and the signing of formulation authorization document occur before a program manager is authorized to begin the planning of a new program.
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