The NASA Office of Inspector General has revealed in a new report that the agency has made progress in its Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative but numerous challenges remain, which have resulted in significant cost increases and schedule delays.
OIG found that the CLPS incurred total initiative cost increases of $208.2 million and an average schedule delay of 14 months per task order, with five of eight task orders experiencing both price increases and schedule delays.
According to the report, NASA increased its oversight of the CLPS initiative and required detailed vendor proposals, higher costs and delayed delivery schedules.
“Specifically, inserting a larger lander to accommodate the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) into CLPS’s early schedule interfered with a progressive development approach. This introduced the added risk of beginning the first large lander delivery before knowledge could be gained from the success (or failure) of smaller deliveries,” the report reads.
OIG made six recommendations, including conducting updated market research on the commercial lunar economy and reassessing NASA’s role in the commercial lunar delivery market to increase accountability and transparency for the CLPS initiative.