On SLS and Orion’s Production and Operations Costs

Eric Berger, for Ars Technica:

Production and operations costs—P&O in NASA's acronym laden jargon—of $2 billion or less would leave a significant amount of money within NASA’s budget for human missions to the vicinity of the Moon, to its surface, or eventually crewed missions to Mars. In fiscal year 2016, NASA received $3.7 billion for exploration systems development, essentially the SLS, Orion, and ground systems budget. The number is likely to grow to $4 billion before the decade’s end.

I’ve been thinking about this article a lot since yesterday.

First off, it doesn’t paint a very rosy picture for SLS and Orion. The above quote lays out that the programs need to run a gauntlet over the next 4 years. Already high costs are growing consistently, and there’s a new administration about to take over. Those are conditions ripe for cancellation, as we’ve seen time and time again.

But moreover, the NASA sources in this article talk about how low costs could be once SLS shifts from development into production and operations, and given the roadmap and timeline for SLS flights, it doesn’t seem likely that development would ever be shed from the budget. Here’s why:

Development for the first flight of SLS is just about done. For the second flight, an entirely new upper stage is needed, and that effort has barely started. That means development of the new upper stage will have to be funded from today through 2021 (when the next flight is currently scheduled).

Of the next 2 launches, at least one of those is going to fly cargo instead of Orion. That means development time and cost for fairings, support structures, and whatever else may be needed for cargo flights.

After those 2 launches, guess what? We’re out of currently available SLS hardware! We’ll have depleted the supply of RS-25D engines and solid booster segments. NASA has stated repeatedly that after the fourth launch, RS-25E engines and advanced boosters will be implemented. So that means some hefty development time and cost for both of those critically-important (and expensive) propulsive elements.

By the time those flights are flying, we’ll probably start to hear about Block II. And repeat.

Aside from this being an election year plea to avoid cancellation of a struggling program, I’m not sure where the idea comes from that SLS will be rid of development in the 2020s.