Sls how much

The SLS rocket program has been managed by Marshall for more than a decade. Critics have derided it as a "jobs program" intended to retain employees at key centers, such as Alabama-based Marshall, as well as those at primary contractors such as Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Such criticism has been bolstered by frequent schedule delays—the SLS was originally due to launch in , and the rocket will now launch no sooner than —as well as cost overruns. For now, costs seem to be the driving factor behind the White House's concerns. Some of the incoming officials do not believe the Artemis Moon Program is sustainable with such launch costs.

Even before the study's initiation, McConnaughey had been pushing for the SLS program to become more cost-effective. One goal of this analysis is to find ways for the large NASA rocket to compete effectively with privately developed rockets as part of the agency's Artemis Moon program. For example, although SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket does not have as much lift capacity as the SLS rocket, it has the advantage of being already in use and costing about one-tenth as much per flight.

Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance are also developing heavy-lift rockets that are intended to deliver components of a Human Landing System to lunar orbit. Perhaps most significantly, SpaceX is continuing a flight test campaign of its Starship Launch System, which may make its first orbital flight in the next 12 months.

And that will likely happen, since NASA doesn't expect to send the first flight to the moon until the latter half of NASA's cost tracking does not show how much the delays are affecting the program's baseline, the report added.

Some of the problems listed in the report include:. This includes a new joint review called a "cost and schedule confidence" analysis and an independent technical and program assessment. NASA will communicate the results of these reviews to Congress and will comply with all applicable reporting requirements," said the statement, which was written by Douglas Loverro , NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, and Thomas Whitmeyer, NASA acting deputy associate administrator for exploration systems development.

Boeing's statement on the inspector general's report also acknowledged difficulties with development but pointed to results that will pay off in future builds of SLS. The Office of Inspector General acknowledged that there is "difficulty of setting baselines long into the future," but warned that the full SLS program cost "will not be readily transparent, because NASA is not tracking and reporting all costs against an official baseline.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter howellspace. And with all of these delays, it becomes increasingly unlikely that NASA will be able to meet its goal of sending humans back to the Moon by , especially if the SLS is a central part of that plan. Subscribe to get the best Verge-approved tech deals of the week. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.

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