A new independent report finds that although NASA's ambitious mission to fly across the surface of Titan is delayed and over budget, the fault is due to the space agency's management rather than the program itself.
Released Tuesday by NASA's Office of Inspector General, the report found that the mission's budget has soared from an initial figure of $850 million upon its selection in 2019 to $3.35 billion today. Additionally, the launch target has slipped from the year 2026 to 2028.
However, the cost increase and schedule slippages are not new. The space agency disclosed these issues nearly a year and a half ago. What is notable about the new report from NASA's inspector general is that the cause of these problems was not a serious technical problem or a flawed design of a vehicle intended to spend years flying across Titan.
Rather, the new report says the primary developer of the vehicle, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, did not receive the funding promised in early years and was directed by NASA to undergo several lengthy "replans" of the mission, in which the overall plan is redone and reviewed.
"The cost increase and schedule delay were in large part the result of NASA directing APL to conduct four replans prior to Dragonfly entering the Implementation Phase," the report states.
These changes were necessitated by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the crunch NASA faced to get other missions ahead of Dragonfly completed. Additionally the report cited supply-chain issues, as well as NASA's own uncertainty about the budget it would receive from Congress.