Boeing Corporation has been sharply criticized by the NASA supervisory authority. The American agency's questions are not caused by the long—suffering Starliner ship stuck in orbit, but by the development of a more powerful version of the Space Launch System (SLS) lunar rocket - Block 1B. Its creation is significantly behind schedule and much over budget, and now NASA has found out why: it turned out that the reason lies in insufficient quality control.
But the problem is that the development of the SLS Block 1B is already seven years behind schedule. In addition, the cost of its creation has increased significantly — they will soon exceed the threshold of $5.7 billion, which is $ 700 million higher than the cost estimate that was approved by NASA in December 2023. Most of the expenses fall on the second stage — the costs for it amount to more than half of the specified amount.
As stated in the report of the Office of the Inspector General of NASA, published on August 8, Boeing has obvious problems with quality control: the fact is that some employees of the company who are involved in the production of rockets at the Michu assembly plant in southern Louisiana simply lack experience in the space field. The lack of qualified labor leads to the fact that the manufactured parts and components of the rocket sometimes do not meet not only the requirements of NASA, but also the standards in general.
So, during a visit to the Michu plant in April 2023, the management staff examined the liquid oxygen tanks intended for the SLS rocket within the framework of Artemis III. It turned out that the tanks did not meet the technical requirements due to "unsatisfactory" welding work - according to the report, the problems arose due to the inexperience of Boeing technicians and "inadequate planning and control of the work."
At the same time, the management of the plant itself claims that it is very difficult to attract and retain employees with experience in aerospace production at the enterprise. This is partly due to the geographical location of the Michu plant and, on the other hand, lower wages compared to other companies. "Given the quality control system at Boeing and related personnel issues, we are concerned that these factors could potentially affect the safety of the SLS and Orion spacecraft, including their crew and cargo," NASA stated.
We have made four recommendations: to improve the quality control program, to analyze cost overruns and to bring EVMS ("Earned Value Management System) in line with the requirements. The fourth point was eventually rejected — it implied penalties for non-compliance with quality control requirements. NASA felt that this went beyond the scope of the contract and could undermine the process of its implementation
Karolina Zulkarnayeva
