National Aeronautics and Space Administration

This report, one in a series of audits examining NASA’s development of space flight systems for Artemis IV and future missions, examines the Agency’s plans to move its individual SLS contracts to a commercial services contract to lower the cost of the launch system.

The Mars Sample Return Program is one of the most complex, demanding, and ambitious robotic science missions ever undertaken. Before authorizing whether to advance the program to its next phase, we recommend that NASA stabilize design for key program elements, ensure cost and schedule estimates...

We contracted with the independent public accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP to audit NASA’s fiscal year 2023 financial statements. For the 13th year in a row, this audit resulted in a “clean” or unmodified opinion.

Like other federal agencies, NASA collects personally identifiable information, or PII. The Agency’s high-profile mission and broad connectivity with the public make it susceptible to increased privacy risks. While it has a comprehensive privacy program, NASA needs to take additional steps to better...

Our Semiannual Report to Congress covering the period April 1 to September 30, 2023, features highlights of the OIG’s audit and investigations accomplishments during the past 6 months.

In this year’s report, we identified seven key challenges for NASA—including two that pose significant cost and schedule risks to the Artemis campaign, the Agency’s most ambitious and expensive human space exploration effort since Apollo.

NASA’s Artemis campaign involves multiple programs and projects, more than a dozen major prime contractors, and thousands of suppliers. When supply chain disruptions happen, it can put the entire effort at risk of significant delays and increased costs. Part of the problem, we found, is that NASA...

Poor contractor performance and technology development issues threaten to push NASA’s On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 project (OSAM-1) beyond its $2.05 billion budget and projected December 2026 launch date.

NASA’s Deep Space Network transmits scientific and communications data between dozens of spacecraft and Earth. However, the network is oversubscribed with demand exceeding supply by 40 percent at times. While NASA is upgrading this critical infrastructure, the effort is costing more and taking...