Lessons Learned: GAO Report on the CRAF/Cassini Missions

A General Accounting Office report released this week provides insights into NASA’s decision to cancel the CRAF mission and to redesign the upcoming Cassini mission. This report is must reading for anyone interested in how NASA made these decisions, as well as for a review of the promises and problems of the 1997 Cassini mission to Saturn.

House science subcommittee chairman James Hayes (D-LA) requested this year-long study, which was based on interviews with NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) officials and the Chairman of the Space Studies Board, as well as document review. The report covers two main topics: the CRAF cancellation and the subsequent restructuring of the Cassini mission.

GAO found that the CRAF mission was squeezed on two fronts. The projected cost of a key instrument, the comet nucleus penetrator, increased from an initial estimate of $22 million to as much as a projected $120 million. This escalation caused NASA to cancel the instrument, undercutting the mission’s justification. GAO found, however, that a 1992 National Research Council report (in GAO’s words) “stated that the CRAF mission had great scientific merit even without the penetrator experiment.” Two other instruments were also eliminated.

Also squeezing CRAF were congressional budget restrictions on mission expenditures. NASA concluded that it had no choice but to eliminate CRAF, and make certain cost-reducing design changes in Cassini. An October 1992 Space Studies Board report concluded that Cassini’s primary scientific objective will not be substantially compromised, although some research opportunities will be lost. Somewhat ominously, NASA has shifted, according to a 1992 JPL estimate, $94 million in Cassini development phase work to the much-beleaguered Mission Operations and Data Analysis account. GAO also reports on several potential problems which could reduce this mission’s effectiveness.

GAO found little documentation of the CRAF decision, and concluded that “no studies or analyses were done to evaluate whether to cancel CRAF or pursue an alternative means of accomplishing CRAF’s missions.” Commenting on the report, science subcommittee member Connie Morella (R-MD) stated, “We must not forget the lessons learned from the cancellation of the CRAF mission as Congress begins preparations for a more austere NASA budget. Space science missions, notably, the Cassini mission, could be profoundly affected.”

For a single free copy of “Space Science - Causes and Impacts of Cutbacks to NASA’s Outer Solar System Exploration Missions” (GAO/NSIAD-94-24) call GAO at 202-512-6000.