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NASA Space

NASA Shutters $2B Satellite Refueling Project, Blames Contractor For Delays. (upi.com) 30

Posted by EditorDavid from the out-of-gas dept.
"NASA said Friday it is shutting down a $2 billion satellite refueling project," reports UPI, "after criticizing the project's contractor for poor performance." The agency in a statement said it will discontinue the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing 1 project after nearly a decade of work due to "continued technical, cost, and schedule challenges, and a broader community evolution away from refueling unprepared spacecraft, which has led to a lack of a committed partner." [...] The spacecraft would have utilized an attached Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robot (SPIDER) to refuel the Landsat, assemble a communications antenna and demonstrate in-space manufacture of a 32-foot carbon fiber composite beam to verify the capability of constructing large spacecraft structures in orbit... An audit from NASA's Inspector General, however, found OSAM-1 was on track to exceed the projected $2.05 billion budget and would not make its December 2026 launch date, laying the blame on the "poor performance of Maxar."

"NASA and Maxar officials acknowledged that Maxar underestimated the scope and complexity of the work, lacked full understanding of NASA technical requirements, and were deficient in necessary expertise," the report read.

The report also noted Maxar was "no longer profiting from their work on OSAM-1," after which the xproject appeared not "to be a high priority for Maxar in terms of the quality of its staffing."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
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NASA Shutters $2B Satellite Refueling Project, Blames Contractor For Delays. More

NASA Shutters $2B Satellite Refueling Project, Blames Contractor For Delays.

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  • Maxar was "no longer profiting from their work on OSAM-1," after which the xproject appeared not "to be a high priority for Maxar in terms of the quality of its staffing."

    Well yeah that'll do it. It "appeared" to not be a priority now that it was losing money. Thank you Cpt. Obv.

    Space is hard. But spacce is also expensive.

    • I am curious, how much did NASA spend giving these lousy contractors before they gave up? You want space to become affordable? NASA designs a contract. Companies submit proposals. Company wins bid. Customer delivers. NASA pays. Any other system is sub-optimal.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Customer delivers. NASA pays.

        This isn't like buying a burger at McDonald's. These contracts take years. And periodic payments are made when certain mileposts are reached. Or nobody could scrape together the funding to fulfill the contract if all payment was made at the end.

        That's even how houses are built. Some defined part of the work is completed, the bank writes a check against the construction loan for that part of the work.

        • There are private equity solutions to these endeavors. The milestones a bank uses are there for a reason. Another contractor can complete the house from that point forward. It is useful mid life. For many of these systems, that isnt the case. If these contracts are open-bid, they will be lucrative enough to be worth the risk. Just look at BioTech. Hundreds of startups spend millions and millions developing drugs, all without any revenue. Just investor capital. Once they get to some point in FDA approval, th
        • In this case, it took a decade to determine that the vendor lacked technical expertise. That seems a bit long. Perhaps more importantly, this entire idea is silly. First, the satellites would need to be designed with some external fueling port. We would need to agree on a propellant that everyone would use. Would it make a bit more sense to just deorbit the failing satellites? It seems unlikely that satellite designers don't have a good guess as to the useful lifetime and already plan to provide enough fuel

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        The problem is private contractors. Every dollar they profit is a dollar that doesn't go to providing the product or service the taxpayers are paying for. Worse, they have little incentive to actually deliver. They're nothing but leaches.

        Properly fund NASA and watch them delivery miracles. Any other system is sub-optimal.

        • Statement seems a little disconnected from reality. I honestly can't think of a NASA project to point to as a success in getting things done on a budget; unless there was a fixed bid private contractor delivering a large part.

          When you let NASA be NASA you get things like the SLS and every Mars mission I can think of: Behind schedule and vastly over budget.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by narcc ( 412956 )

            It's just a simple fact. The profit motive guarantees that private contractors are inefficient. They're nothing but leaches.

            • Blue Orbit puts a human being suborbital in a capsule where human assisted experiments can be run. For $500k.

              NASA has been launching sounding rockets since their inception and it still costs them $1m to send one up with an experiment to be recovered.

              That's why NASA books seats on Blue Origin's private tourism ship.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by narcc ( 412956 )

                You mean Blue Origin? The company that only reached orbit in January of this year ... but not on it's own rocket?

                Get real.

                The only thing Blue Origin seems to be able to do is hoover-up public money.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kmahan ( 80459 )

      Hope this spells the end of Maxar being allowed to bid for government contracts -- at least for NASA

  • plus interest then

    • Except they were doing what was requested: trying to design a craft to refuel satellites in space. They may not have completed the project, but they did do research and design into how it could be done.

      While I agree refunding would be nice, if we go down that route companies all over the place would be handing back money for uncompleted projects which would then lead to companies not bothering to bid on contracts unless they were absoutely, 100% certain they could meet the requirements. That in turn would

  • It seems that the contract review and vendor selection were extremely deficient here. Hey NASA, for $2B I'll build a space refueling system for you. You'll a;sp need to pay me in advance and I'll need $1B every six mos for additional capital expenditures and resources. Of course, I won't be liable for the delivery or performance of the system and it'll take 10 years to develop.

    Sign Here and deliver the $2B upfront to my account in the Cayman Islands. [youtube.com]

    • Sometimes this is because the customer can't write a decent specification, so nobody will bid except on something more akin to a time and materials basis.
      Wouldn't surprise me ...

      • Sometimes this is because the customer can't write a decent specification, so nobody will bid except on something more akin to a time and materials basis. Wouldn't surprise me ...

        Or the customer (NASA) kept revising the project specifications during the "life" of the project?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          If the "requirements" are too unstable, perhaps more R&D is needed before contracting out a production-intended build. It needs a pilot project or two to work the kinks out.

  • After they were treated to dinner, they were let go. Deficient in necessary expertise was overheard in the elevator. They had to cover the valet parking, among other things.

  • NASA Shutters $2B Satellite Refueling Project, Blames Contractor For Delays.

    So NASA now follows the Boeing example?

  • How is it possible that Maxar can do this without any ramifications, it's clear they did not abide the contract and therefore should relinquish all designs of the project over to NASA and pay back the money. If they can get away with this at least some at the top of NASA should be fired for not properly overseeing the money spent. And ofcourse Maxar should nit be allowed to do another bid, or they can, but are never awarded it. But I have a feeling someone at NASA has an invested interest in the company, di

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