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WASHINGTON — NASA has canceled a multibillion-dollar challenge to exhibit satellite tv for pc servicing applied sciences that had suffered in depth delays and value overruns.
In a quick assertion March 1, NASA introduced it was ending the On-Orbit Servicing, Meeting and Manufacturing (OSAM) 1 mission. OSAM-1 was being developed to refuel the Landsat 7 spacecraft after which carry out the in-orbit meeting of a Ka-band satellite tv for pc antenna.
NASA mentioned it was canceling OSAM-1 “resulting from continued technical, value, and schedule challenges, and a broader group evolution away from refueling unprepared spacecraft, which has led to an absence of a dedicated companion.”
The company mentioned that, after formal congressional notifications of its determination, it will begin the method for an orderly shutdown, which would come with transferring {hardware} and “pursuing potential partnerships or various {hardware} makes use of.”
NASA mentioned it will additionally evaluate how one can mitigate the affect of the cancellation on the workforce on the Goddard Area Flight Middle, which was main OSAM-1. NASA spokesperson Jimi Russell mentioned there are roughly 450 NASA staff and contractors engaged on OSAM-1, and that NASA “is dedicated to supporting challenge workforce per plan by fiscal yr 2024.”
OSAM-1 began a couple of decade in the past as Restore-L, with the purpose of launching as quickly as 2020 to refuel Landsat 7. The mission was renamed OSAM-1 in 2020 with the addition of payloads to carry out in-space meeting and manufacturing actions.
The mission, although, suffered vital value overruns and delays. As of April 2022, the mission’s whole value, as soon as projected to be between $626 million and $753 million, had grown to $2.05 billion and its launch delayed to December 2026. NASA’s Workplace of Inspector Normal (OIG), in an October 2023 report, concluded the challenge would seemingly endure extra overruns, with an estimated value at completion as excessive as $2.17 billion and a launch of between March and June 2027.
A key consider OSAM-1’s issues, the report concluded, was the efficiency of Maxar, which is supplying each the spacecraft bus in addition to the robotics payload, known as Area Infrastructure Dexterous Robotic (SPIDER), underneath contracts with a mixed worth of almost $316 million. Maxar delivered the OSAM-1 bus in September 2023, two and a half years delayed, and was operating greater than two years late with the deliveries of SPIDER elements, OIG discovered.
Maxar acknowledged within the report that that they had “considerably underestimated the scope and complexity of the work” modifying considered one of its 1300-series satellite tv for pc buses, designed for industrial geostationary orbit communications satellites, to be used on OSAM-1 in low Earth orbit. The corporate additionally had technical issues with SPIDER in addition to points managing subcontractors. NASA mentioned in September 2023 it has eliminated one factor of SPIDER known as MakerSat, which might have manufactured a composite beam, to concentrate on its servicing and meeting applied sciences.
That report traced the issues with the OSAM-1 bus and SPIDER to using mounted agency worth contracts that, OIG concluded, gave NASA no means to incentivize the corporate’s efficiency. NASA at occasions stepped in, offering an estimated $2 million in labor to assist with the OSAM-1 bus in 2022 and 2023.
“In our discussions with Maxar officers, they acknowledged that they had been not making the most of their work on OSAM-1,” OIG famous in its report. “Furthermore, challenge officers said that OSAM-1 doesn’t look like a excessive precedence for Maxar when it comes to the standard of its staffing.”
Maxar spokesperson Eric Glass mentioned the corporate had delivered to NASA a pallet for the SPIDER payload, in addition to considered one of its three robotic arms, with the opposite two robotic arms deliberate for supply later this yr. “Whereas we’re upset by the choice to discontinue this system, we’re dedicated to supporting NASA in pursuing potential new partnerships or various {hardware} makes use of as they full the shutdown,” he mentioned.
One drawback OSAM-1 didn’t have was funding. Congress commonly exceeded NASA’s requests for funding for the mission. The OIG report famous that NASA requested $808.5 million for OSAM-1 between 2016 and 2023 however Congress appropriated greater than $1.48 billion. NASA requested $227 million for OSAM-1 for fiscal yr 2024 and each the Home and Senate variations of spending payments totally funded the mission.
OSAM-1’s cancelation comes as many firms are commercially pursuing satellite tv for pc servicing applied sciences, in lots of circumstances utilizing extra cooperative approaches comparable to designing satellites with refueling ports that scale back the complexity of refueling. On the annual assembly of CONFERS, a satellite tv for pc servicing business group, in October 2023, an viewers member famous there had been little dialogue about OSAM-1 in convention shows.
Bo Naasz, who leads satellite tv for pc servicing functionality improvement at NASA, acknowledged the problem in creating a spacecraft designed to refuel a spacecraft “not ready” for servicing. “It’s actually exhausting,” he mentioned. He argued the worth of OSAM-1 was to exhibit robotic applied sciences that might be transferred for different purposes whereas gaining expertise in satellite tv for pc servicing.
“We will help persuade the patron that we all know how to do that and that it’s prepared,” he concluded. “I believe it’s, however I additionally suppose it’s exhausting.”
