The NASA sign at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Picture: Carlos Barria/REUTERS The NASA sign at the Kennedy Space Center visitors complex in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Picture: Carlos Barria/REUTERS
Washington DC – The development of software needed to control the Orion deep-space crew vehicle and the rocket to launch astronauts into space is more than a year behind schedule at a cost more than 77 percent above estimates, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Inspector General announced in a report.
“The SCCS [Spaceport Command and Control System] development effort has significantly exceeded cost and schedule estimates,” the report said on Monday.
“Compared to fiscal year 2012 projections, development costs have increased approximately 77 percent to $207.4 million and the release of a fully operational version has slipped by 14 months from July 2016 to September 2017,” the report explained.
NASA is developing the Orion spacecraft to carry astronauts near the moon and a nearby asteroid in the 2020s and eventually to Mars in the 2030s. The effort depends on the development of a heavy-lift rocket known as the Space Launch System to escape Earth's gravity.
The software is intended to control pumps, motors, valves, power supplies and other ground equipment; record and retrieve data from systems before and during launch; and monitor the health and status of spacecraft as they prepare for and launch, according to the report.
Without information provided by the software, it will be more difficult for controllers and engineers to quickly diagnose and resolve problems, the report explained.
Sputnik