At the request of the Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and Independent Agencies of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, the General Accounting Office (GAO) reviewed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) plans for future shuttle flights. Specifically, they evaluated the (1) factors associated with achieving planned flight rates, (2) processes to ensure that safety is not compromised by increasing flight rates, (3) impact of variations in flight rate estimates on procurement of subsystems and spare parts, and (4) planned use of expendable launch vehicles for payloads not requiring the shuttle. NASA has reduced its projection of the maximum annual shuttle flight rate to 10 flights a year and does not anticipate flying at this rate before late in the decade. Unless NASA can reduce shuttle ground processing time, GAO calculates that NASA will not be able to consistently launch the shuttle more that 7 or 8 times a year. No evidence was found to suggest that NASA might compromise safety to create the flight rate or that overly optimistic flight rate projections have resulted in excess procurement of spare parts. GAO notes some inefficiencies in the production of subsystems such as external tanks and solid rocket boosters, due primarily to funding constraints. NASA is evolving from a policy of almost exclusive reliance on the shuttle to launch its payloads to one of using the shuttle only when necessary. The report recommends that the Administrator implement plans to reduce advanced solid rocket manufacturing equipment to be consistent with current shuttle flight rate estimates and determine how much could be saved by reducing the size of motor manufacturing facilities.


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    Title :

    Space Shuttle: NASA Faces Challenges in Its Attempt to Achieve Planned Flight Rates


    Publication date :

    1991


    Size :

    50 pages


    Type of media :

    Report


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English





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