NASA evaluating plan to restructure OSAM-1 satellite tv for pc servicing mission

WASHINGTON — NASA is assessing a plan developed on the request of Congress to proceed a satellite tv for pc servicing mission however has made no selections about rescinding earlier plans to cancel it.

NASA introduced March 1 that it might cancel the On-Orbit Servicing, Meeting and Manufacturing (OSAM) 1 mission, citing intensive price overruns and delays in addition to a “lack of a dedicated companion” to make use of the satellite tv for pc servicing know-how the mission would reveal. The company stated on the time it might start work to wind down the mission, supporting a venture workforce of about 450 folks by means of the top of the 2024 fiscal 12 months.

Language within the ultimate fiscal 12 months 2024 appropriations invoice, launched simply days after NASA’s cancelation announcement, which totally funded OSAM-1 at $227 million, directed NASA to regulate the mission to launch in 2026 throughout the spending profile NASA included in its 2024 price range request. That might be accomplished, the report accompanying the invoice recommended, by means of “potential de-scoping of some non-essential capabilities,” including that if it isn’t doable, NASA ought to conduct one other continuation assessment in September.

NASA has supplied no public updates on that effort for the reason that passage of the spending invoice. Nevertheless, in an Aug. 13 earnings name, Intuitive Machines, which has an engineering providers contract with NASA Goddard Area Flight Heart, the lead heart for OSAM-1, recommended his firm had discovered a solution to proceed OSAM-1 inside the fee and schedule constraints set within the invoice.

“We have been requested to go in and have a look at what it might take to ramp that down, but additionally we acquired the chance to say the way you would possibly save that venture, the way you would possibly get it again on schedule and again on price range,” Steve Altemus, chief govt, stated on the decision, referring to OSAM-1.

“We did that, and we labored with NASA to place a plan collectively that truly places it again on schedule for its launch and again within the price range field,” he stated. “That was briefed up the chain to NASA.”

He didn’t focus on how the corporate, working with NASA, was capable of resolve the fee and schedule points going through the mission. “We’ve restructured it for fulfillment, in order that’s a really constructive signal,” he stated, noting language in a Senate appropriations invoice for fiscal 12 months 2025 would supply as much as $174.5 million for OSAM-1, versus the company’s request of simply $11 million for closing out the venture.

NASA, although, has made no choice about whether or not to backtrack on that cancelation choice. “NASA directed the OSAM-1 venture to develop two potential ahead plans for assessment: one to fulfill a 2026 launch date and one other to shut out the venture,” NASA spokesperson Jasmine Hopkins informed SpaceNews Aug. 15. “These plans have been supplied to NASA management and are being assessed.”

NASA has not supplied any insights into what a restructured OSAM-1 mission would possibly appear like. A February report by an unbiased assessment board chartered by NASA to evaluate the mission concluded that, if NASA did elect to proceed it, it ought to scale back the venture’s workforce to not more than 200 folks and settle for the Maxar-built spacecraft bus “as is” with none extra adjustments. It additionally advisable eradicating a lidar instrument and an area robotics experiment known as SPIDER from the crucial path to forestall additional delays, and set a “date sure” launch readiness date no later than February 2026.

That report, although, advisable that NASA as an alternative cancel OSAM-1. “Each cost- and schedule-to-go are substantial and the chance for additional schedule decay and price will increase stays excessive,” it concluded, noting that the mission nonetheless required practically $1 billion and will slip to March 2028.

There may be additionally, regardless of the Senate language, no congressional consensus that OSAM-1 ought to proceed. The report accompanying a Home spending invoice for fiscal 12 months 2025 didn’t specify any funding for the mission, stating that appropriators have been awaiting an replace from NASA on the feasibility of flying the mission in 2026. Even the Senate report famous the necessity to see a “cheap and executable plan” to fulfill the fee and schedule necessities included within the 2024 spending invoice earlier than spending any cash on OSAM-1 in 2025.

Each Home and Senate appropriators known as on NASA to seek out different companions for OSAM-1, such because the Protection Division. The unbiased assessment, although, famous that whereas the DOD is considering satellite tv for pc refueling as one strategy to what it calls “dynamic house operations,” the army is extra considering such capabilities in geostationary orbit, fairly than low Earth orbit, the place OSAM-1 will function.

DOD personnel that the board talked to have been involved about impacts to the commercial base if OSAM-1 will not be continued, however these folks “have been constant of their view that the excessive price, comparatively quick operational life, the mission orbit in LEO and OSAM-1’s personal lack of ability to be refueled didn’t make their industrial affect issues override consideration of program termination or substantial redirection.”

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