GAO has called on NASA to provide additional cost transparency and design criteria for its projects.
It said the agency does not provide Congress cost and schedule information for projects in the early, critical phases of development and makes this information public only after the projects have been formally approved.
NASA also does not use a common, proven metric to assess design stability before allowing programs to move from the design phase to the test and integration phase of the development process, according to GAO-11-364R.
It called on the the chief financial officer to provide more transparency into project costs in the early, critical phases of development.
That would include progress reports for space flight programs and projects in formulation that include information on cumulative prior budget authority and current cost ranges in NASA’s annual budget submission.
GAO also called on the office of the chief engineer to develop a common set of measurable and proven criteria, such as the percentage of releasable design drawings, to assess design stability and to allow decision-makers to make more informed, consistent determinations of approval for projects to proceed from the final design phase to the assembly, integration, and test phase and to amend NASA’s systems engineering policy, accordingly.
