Glitches Slow Rocket Plane Development
Technical glitches in Lockheed Martin Corp.’s development of a replacement for the space shuttle have raised the cost to U.S. taxpayers by $317.6 million and forced it to delay test flights of the prototype 16 months, according to a congressional report released Wednesday.
As a result of Lockheed Martin’s setbacks in assembling the X-33 rocket plane at its Mojave Desert plant, NASA will be forced to pay more than envisioned for a prototype that will deliver less than originally planned, said the report by the General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress.
The report raises doubts about the fate of NASA’s effort to find a successor to its fleet of space shuttles, which it aims to replace after 2012, when the orbiters will be 30 years old.
At stake for Lockheed Martin, the world’s top defense contractor, is an opportunity to dominate the business of flying to the international space station and, eventually, to seize the commercial satellite-launch industry from the French.
Under the space agency’s plan, the X-33 would demonstrate the technical feasibility of building a full-scale reusable launch vehicle that would cut space mission costs tenfold.
The rocket plane would incorporate an array of new technologies, including a lightweight composite fuel tank, an advanced heat shield and a revolutionary, highly efficient single-stage rocket engine. The half-scale prototype would lead to development of a vehicle Lockheed Martin calls Venture Star. That vehicle is conceived as a more economical successor to the space shuttle and its booster rockets.
GAO examiners questioned whether snafus in the X-33 project will undermine the development of the Venture Star. “We continue to believe that flight delays may affect NASA’s investment plans for future space flight programs,” the GAO said. “One of the key issues facing NASA is whether the X-33 program results provide confidence that risks have been reduced.”
Lockheed, which oversees the project from its fabled Skunk Works in Palmdale, said components engineered for each of the X-33’s hoped-for technological leaps have come apart during assembly, delaying the first scheduled flight from March of this year to July 2000.
Fixing the technical problems increased Lockheed’s costs from $211.6 million to $286.6 million, the GAO said. But the Bethesda, Md.-based defense contractor is likely to recoup about 56% of that by classifying a portion of its costs as independent research and development expenses that it can charge as overhead in other government contracts, the GAO said.
What’s more, the government’s costs for NASA X-33 personnel who weren’t included in its program budget have risen. Taken together, the government’s estimated cost for the project has risen from an initial $912.4 million to about $1.23 billion, the report said.
At the same time, Lockheed Martin and NASA have lowered the bar for the project by revising the X-33’s earlier objectives. For example, the GAO said the prototype will use an internal liquid oxygen tank made of aluminum, instead of lightweight composites as initially envisioned--even though the full-scale Venture Star will probably need to have a composite tank in order to be light enough to reach orbit.
Program managers also had to slash the X-33’s intended top speed from Mach 15 to Mach 13.8 because engineers said it is too heavy. Weight-reduction modifications for the Venture Star would be tested on the ground.
Also, NASA relaxed the terms of its scheduled payments to Lockheed. The space agency shortened the X-33’s test-flight schedule from 10 months to three, but said the contractor will be paid at least $60 million even if it completes only five of the initially planned 15 flights. Under the original plan, Lockheed was required to successfully fly the vehicle 15 times in 10 months to receive a $75-million payment.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), a member of the House Science Committee who requested the study, said the X-33 delays may push back the start of development of Venture Star until at least 2005.
“The government has spent three years and nearly a billion dollars only to see the American taxpayer condemned to continue paying the high current cost of human and cargo space transportation,” Rohrabacher said in a statement.
The GAO recommended that NASA issue a series of performance targets to “establish a clear path leading from the X-33 flight test vehicle to an operational” reusable launch vehicle such as Venture Star.
NASA said it concurred with that recommendation but said it has “differences of opinion” about the GAO’s findings on its costs.
A spokesman said Lockheed Martin’s executives overseeing the project were traveling Wednesday and could not be reached for comment.
