Somewhere out there in the cosmos, there’s a giant rock with Earth’s name on it. Despite the danger, NASA’s effort to identify potentially dangerous near Earth objects and figure out what to do about them is disorganized and poorly managed, an internal audit has found.

“NASA has organized its NEO Program under a single Program Executive who manages a loosely structured conglomerate of research activities that are not well integrated and lack overarching Program oversight, objectives, and established milestones to track progress,” according to an audit issued Monday by NASA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG).

“In addition, NASA is undertaking NEO-related activities not managed by the Program and not sufficiently integrated into ongoing Program activities. Furthermore, NASA lacks formal agreements or procedures for NEO-related activities it conducts with other Federal agencies and foreign governments and has not taken advantage of possible partnership opportunities.”

NASA has agreed to implement a series of reforms recommended in the OIG audit.

“The Associate Administrator concurred with our recommendations and agreed to establish a formal NEO Program in accordance with NASA guidance,” according to the report. “He also stated the Program will conduct a full-time equivalent analysis, develop a plan to establish formal partnerships, and establish a coordination plan between observatories – all of which he promised will be documented in the NEO Program Plan.

“We consider NASA’s planned actions responsive and will close the recommendations upon verification of their completion,” the report reads.

The results section of the report is excerpted below. You can also download the full report:

NASA’s Efforts to Identify and Mitigate Near-Earth Object Hazards (IG-014-030) — PDF

Results

NASA has organized its NEO Program under a single Program Executive who manages a loosely structured conglomerate of research activities that are not well integrated and lack overarching Program oversight, objectives, and established milestones to track progress. In addition, NASA is undertaking NEO-related activities not managed by the Program and not sufficiently integrated into ongoing Program activities. Furthermore, NASA lacks formal agreements or procedures for NEO-related activities it conducts with other Federal agencies and foreign governments and has not taken advantage of possible partnership opportunities. Consequently, managers could not identify the level of resources required to adequately support the Program or explain how activities to which the NEO Program is contributing further Program goals. Even though the Program has discovered, categorized, and plotted the orbits of more than 11,000 NEOs since 1998, NASA will fall short of meeting the 2005 Authorization Act goal of finding 90 percent of NEOs larger than 140 meters in diameter by 2020. We believe the Program would be more efficient, effective, and transparent were it organized and managed in accordance with standard NASA research program requirements.

Lack of Structure and Limited Resources Hinders the NEO Program. Since creation of the NEO Program, the number of identified NEOs has increased from less than 500 in 1998 to over 11,000 as of July 2014. Most of this work occurred while the Program was relatively small – receiving only $4 million annually from FYs 2002 through 2009 and funding less than 20 individual efforts – and focused on identifying the largest NEOs.

However, with the directive to identify 90 percent of NEOs larger than 140 meters, substantially increased budget beginning in FY 2011, and additional projects, the NEO Program’s existing structure and resources are inadequate to provide efficient, effective, and transparent program management.

In FY 2013, the Program Executive oversaw a budget of $20.5 million and 64 funding instruments that included grants, purchase orders, and contract task orders to observatories and other facilities. With the Program budget growing to $40 million in FY 2014, the number of funding instruments will likely also increase and with it the Program Executive’s oversight responsibilities.

In addition to limited personnel, the NEO Program lacks a plan with integrated milestones, defined objectives, and cost and schedule estimates to assist in tracking and attaining Program goals. To implement the goals of the 2005 Authorization Act, the Program provided funding to more ground-based observatories and obtained additional observation time at observatories such as the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System in Hawaii and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. In addition, the Program supports the work of NASA initiatives such as the Asteroid Redirect Mission and NEO Program personnel provide technical support for a Space Act Agreement with the B612 Foundation to assist in the development of a privately funded, space-based infrared telescope. Despite this increased activity, NASA has not changed or improved the NEO Program’s management structure and the Program has not established a plan to integrate the additional initiatives or track their contributions to attainment of NEO Program goals.

In our judgment, the NEO Program would be better equipped to meet its goals if the Program followed NASA’s programmatic policies for research projects and if Program management established clear and verifiable requirements for processes pertaining to NEO detection, characterization, and mitigation.

NASA Needs to Improve its Oversight of NEO Grants and Task Orders. NASA’s controls for managing and overseeing costs associated with the NEO Program are inadequate to ensure proper accounting of Agency-funded grants and task orders. First, we found that contrary to effective internal control standards, the NEO Program Executive is responsible for or has significant input into all the primary elements of the award process, including overseeing, monitoring, and evaluating the progress of awards. Having the Program Executive perform all these tasks increases the risk of error or fraud in the Program.

We also reviewed the 10 awards that exceeded $900,000 the NEO Program funded in FY 2013 and found the Program did not adequately oversee, monitor, or evaluate the progress of the work performed. For example, NASA recently awarded the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research Program a $6.5 million, 5-year grant via an interagency transfer in spite of a steep decline in its ability to provide NEO detection. In addition, we identified three instances in which NASA awarded grants when contracts would have been the more appropriate instrument for achieving Program goals. Although these grants supported some research, the majority of funds supported operations and maintenance on observatory facilities and therefore, pursuant to Federal law, NASA should have used a contract.8 Furthermore, a contract would have provided greater visibility into awardee operations and ensured the level of funding and awardee performance was commensurate with requirements and deliverables.

Lack of Formal Agreements with Federal and International Partners Hampers NASA’s Ability to Accomplish Program Goals. Although NASA has established two formal partnerships with domestic, nongovernmental research organizations and several informal partnerships, a lack of planning and resources has prevented the NEO Program from developing additional partnerships that could help achieve Program goals. For example, establishing formal partnerships with the Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation could give the Program access to additional Earth-based telescopes, thereby increasing its ability to detect, track, and characterize a greater number of NEOs.

Moreover, the NEO Program has not taken advantage of experience gained by other NASA programs, such as the International Space Station, that have formed international partnerships. Such expanded partnerships could accelerate discovery of NEOs, aid in development of global mitigation strategies, and help ensure that the burden of mitigating NEO threats does not disproportionately fall on NASA and the United States.

To improve NASA’s efforts to discover, characterize, and catalog NEOs and develop mitigation strategies, we recommended the Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate develop a formal NEO Program with a strategic plan, integrated master schedule, and cost estimates. We also recommended the Associate Administrator direct the NEO Program Executive to develop and implement requirements, procedures, and internal controls to address deficiencies; perform a full-time equivalent analysis to determine the staff required to manage, oversee, and administer the Program; develop a plan to establish formal partnerships with domestic and international agencies to leverage resources and complementary technologies; and establish a systematic oversight process pursuant to which NASA-funded observatories are required to coordinate to avoid duplication of effort.

In response to a draft of this report, the Associate Administrator concurred with our recommendations and agreed to establish a formal NEO Program in accordance with NASA guidance. He also stated the Program will conduct a full-time equivalent analysis, develop a plan to establish formal partnerships, and establish a coordination plan between observatories – all of which he promised will be documented in the NEO Program Plan.

We consider NASA’s planned actions responsive and will close the recommendations upon verification of their completion. We also reviewed management’s comments regarding the technical accuracy of the draft and made changes as appropriate. Management’s full response to the draft report is reprinted in Appendix D.