The current management structure of NASA’s deep space network is not suitable to adequately matching resources with future requirements, the Government Accountability Office has said.
The deep-space network, a system of antennas located at three sites around the world, provides the current ground communications to achieve space missions that under the President’s vision for space exploration could see human and robotic missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond, which could mean around $100 billion invested in new technologies and facilities.
While NASA’s deep space network can meet most requirements of its current workload, it may not be able to meet near-term and future demand, according to GAO-06-445.
It said the system suffers from an aging, fragile infrastructure with some crucial components more than 40 years old, and that it has lost science data during routine operations and critical events.
Further, new customers compete with each other and legacy missions for limited capacity, and program officials doubt they can provide enough coverage to an increasing set of new missions, especially those called for under the President’s vision, the report said.
It said NASA does not match funding for space communications capabilities with agency-wide space communications requirements, and while the agency has created an entity to review technical requirements or integrating assets like the network into an agency-wide architecture for the longer-term, that entity does not address program level requirements or influence investment decisions.
Because mission directorates and programs have control over such requirements and funding, investments may undercut broader agency goals for space communications, GAO said.
It said however that NASA bas begun studying how to better manage this gap between agency-level requirements and program-level funding, but no recommendations for action have yet been proposed.