NASA: Preliminary Observations on Major Acquisition Projects and Management Challenges
Abstract
GAO's ongoing work indicates that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has made progress over the past 5 years in a number of key acquisition management areas, but it faces significant risks in some of its major projects. On the positive side, the cost and schedule performance of NASA's portfolio of major projects in development has improved and most current projects are adhering to their committed cost and schedule baselines. In addition, NASA has maintained recent improvements in the implementation of key product development best practices, which can help reduce risk in projects. Although NASA's overall performance has improved, GAO's preliminary results show that NASA has rebaselined a major project for each year 8 out of the last 9 years, which means the projects experienced significant cost or schedule growth. This often occurs as projects prepare to begin system assembly, integration, and test; nine projects will be in that phase of development in 2016, including the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (Orion) and Space Launch System, which are human spaceflight programs with significant development risks.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 25, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1156405
Entities
People
- Cristina T. Chaplain
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office