Audit: KSC faces challenges readying for SLS launch

Kennedy Space Center faces "significant" challenges getting ready for a first test flight of NASA's new human exploration rocket in late 2018, according to an internal agency audit released today.

The center has made steady progress renovating launch pad 39B, a Vehicle Assembly Building high bay, a mobile launch tower and other infrastructure to support the first liftoff of a Space Launch System rocket by November 2018, according to the report by NASA's Office of Inspector General.

But the ability of KSC's Ground Systems Development and Operations program to stay on schedule — at a projected cost of $2.8 billion — depends heavily on input from the programs separately developing the SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule, whose designs are not finished.

As a result, the ground systems program "has limited control over many of the items that continue to represent risk to launching SLS by November 2018," the report says.

One of its top risks, the auditors found, does not involve renovations of decades-old facilities but the development of software needed for firing rooms and other facilities to process and launch the exploration vehicles.

The software system's second of four versions was expected to be completed last month, five months behind schedule," the report noted.

Overall, nearly half of the 42 risks the program is tracking, including five of the top eight, are items that rely on the other programs for information and progress.

NASA agreed with the inspector general's recommendation to delay a final design review of KSC's ground systems until after the SLS and Orion programs have completed theirs.

That pushed the review back by nine months, from this month to December.

Other concerns the audit cited included the potential late delivery of hardware and data for a device that will connect launch tower lines to the Orion spacecraft; too little time to test and demonstrate new ground systems; and an anticipated "learning curve" as engineers figure out how to operate the systems together before the first launch.

"The current learning curve analysis shows a potential six-month schedule delay," the report says.

The ground systems challenges are just one reason the first SLS launch could slip into 2019 — more than a year after NASA's original target date of December 2017.

NASA has said it has 80 percent confidence the ground systems will be ready by November 2018 based on current budgets, but only 70 percent confidence the 322-foot SLS rocket will be ready by then. A confidence level for the Orion capsule could be confirmed this month.

No crew would fly on the first test flight. Astronauts would board Orion on the next flight, tentatively targeted for launch from KSC in 2022.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean, or on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace