requirements become firm, the reserves are reduced and the estimated cost for known requirements is increased. The status of the reserves and requirements are shown below. (All dollar amounts are in 1984 dollars.) a/This is the estimated cost for August and September 1982 only. a. What is the current amount of the Space Telescope reserves? b. Between December 1980 and July 1982, NASA used reserves at a rate of about $5.86 million a month. If this rate were to continue, the reserves would be eliminated by August 1983. Based on this information, what confidence does NASA have that it can complete the development program within the current estimate of $775 million? c. In both fiscal years 1981 and 1982, NASA deferred work which was scheduled to be done during those years to succeeding years because of funding problems. From December 1980 until July 1982, the cost of work scheduled to be done in FY 1983 increased from $68.4 million to $120.2 million, an increase of 76 percent. What is the current estimated cost of known requirements for fiscal years 1983 through program completion? What is the likelihood that work currently planned to be accomplished in FY 1983 will have to be deferred until future years? Answer 33: a. As of October 1982, there was $56 million of unencumbered reserve in the Space Telescope program. Since that time, technical and management problems have caused NASA to reassess the Space Telescope program and its reserve status. We are currently reviewing a range of alternatives for rephasing the work to minimize the cost and schedule impact. As soon as our evaluation is complete, we will inform the committee of our proposed actions. b. As might be expected in a program of this complexity, we are continuing to experience technical problems, particularly in the optical telescope assembly development activities, which will most likely impact the scheduled launch commitment of the first half of 1985 and runout cost of $725-$775 million (FY 1983 dollars) for the Space Telescope. c. As a result of the difficulties we have recently uncovered in the development of the optical telescope assembly, there is a strong likelihood that we will not only revise the total cost of the program but we will also need to reprogram funding in FY 1983 and FY 1984 to meet the required needs of this project. We anticipate that additional funding will be obtained from existing NASA resources in FY 1983 and within the budget totals proposed in the FY 1984 budget. Question 34: Since this highly skilled work force contributes significantly to the accomplishment of the programs, it is important to review the two budgets together in order to understand the status of the program. Since the inception of the Space Telescope program, several efforts which were originally planned to be accomplished in-house by the civil service work force. In a sense, this represents a cost growth in the program. a. Please provide a listing of all tasks which were originally planned to be accomplished by the were subsequently deleted from the contracts and are now being accomplished in-house. contractors but b. What is the estimated value of this work? Answer 34: a. Following are tasks that were originally planned to be performed by the associate contractors that are now being performed in-house, or other contractors under the direction of the by project: --Optical telescope assembly fracture mechanics analyses (in-house) installation --Design and development of equipment for scientific instruments and fine guidance sensors (design in-house, manufacturing contractor) --Optical telescope assembly shipping container design and development (contractor) --Space support equipment design and development (design in-house, manufacturing contractor) --Space Telescope simulator for Space Telescope operations control center training (in-house) --Orbital verification planning (in-house) is b. The estimated value of this work approximately $40 million, including cost of material and subcontracted effort. Question 35: When the Space Telescope program was revised in late 1980, the program was descoped to a higher risk program. For example, spares which would have been available to replace components which fail during the assembly and verification phase were eliminated from the program. In addition, a number of subsystem tests were deleted. a. How would NASA characterize the additional program risk associated with the descoping? b. Since spares were deleted, how will the Agency respond to a component or subsystem failure which occurs during the final assembly and verification phase? If a failure should occur, will it mean that the Space Telescope launch will be delayed more than would have been necessary if the spares originally planned had been available? c. Does the reduction in subsystem testing mean that the overall Space Telescope test program is more risky? Answer 35: a. The descoping effort will impact our ability to respond to equipment failure during subsystem and system level verification and testing. For example, if during this testing we experience an anomaly in a black box for which we have no flight spare, we will be forced to repair the box rather than replace it with the spare. This may add time to our test schedules. In order to minimize the impact of possible failures, we have retained flight spares for some of the most critical equipment and we feel that the additional risk introduced by this reduction in our spares program is acceptable. b. Spares for many components and subsystems have been maintained, especially for those items such as rate gyros, reaction wheels, and batteries, which would require long lead time to repair or replace in a timely fashion. Complete replacement parts, assembled to the electronic board level, exist for many other components and subsystems. If a failure should occur for these components and subsystems, it will probably require more time and effort to correct than if a 19-200 0-83--7 completely assembled spare were available. In most instances, however, workarounds and test procedure adjustments can be instituted to minimize or prevent significant delay in the Space Telescope launch schedule. C. A major purpose of subsystem testing is to weed out hardware and software problems prior to system level testing. The deferral of testing from the subsystem to the system level means that some problems will surface later in the program. Consequently, the risk associated with reduced subsystem testing is the increased time and resources required to correct these problems during system level tests. In either case, the successful completion of system testing will provide confidence to proceed to the launch. Question 36: Whereas, in the past, it has been necessary to design satellites with components of an extremely high reliability and to frequently build in redundancy to preclude satellite failures, the unique capabilities of the Space Shuttle which enable in-orbit repair and, if necessary, the return of the telescope to earth, permit NASA to relax reliability redundancy requirements. and a. To what extent has the Agency taken advantage of these unique Shuttle capabilities in designing the Space Telescope? Answer 36: a. NASA has taken full advantage of the Shuttle's unique capabilities in the Space Telescope design and development. The Shuttle will be used to ferry the Space Telescope to orbit and to conduct inorbit checkout prior to deployment. The Space Telescope is designed to be serviceable in-orbit by space-suited astronauts during Shuttle revisits. In the event that a problem cannot be solved by in-orbit maintenance, the Space Telescope is designed to allow retrieval and return to earth by the Shuttle for ground maintenance and/or refurbishment and subsequent relaunch. Question 37: When NASA revised the Space Telescope program in late 1980, the Agency established a target launch date of the first half of calendar year 1985. Internally, however, the project office established a goal of launching in November 1984. Contract schedules were structured to meet the November 1984 launch date. In effect, the overall launch schedule contained a seven-month reserve (November 1984 June 1985). By August 1982, the project office had revised its launch goal to January 1985 because of continued technical problems and funding constraints. What is the probability of meeting the project office goal of launching the Space Telescope in January 1985? Answer 37: The difficulties encountered in the. development of the optical telescope assembly have caused the project office to abandon the goal of launching the Space Telescope in January of 1985. The project office is currently developing a number of alternatives to rephase the Space Telescope development efforts and to determine the impact on the launch schedule. As soon as our evaluation is complete, we will inform the committee. Question 38: When the Space Telescope contracts were awarded, "bake-out" of structural components was not included as a requirement. Space Telescope structures are significantly larger than those of any previous orbiting telescope and only a few facilities in the United States are capable of performing a "bakeout" of components the size of those planned for the Space Telescope. The time required to perform the "bake-out" together with the equipment needed to clean the facilities and perform the "bake-out" would be very expensive. Since no data were available on the effects of not performing the "bake-outs", the contracts required only that the components be "visibly clean." Subsequent testing and analyses have shown, however, that meeting the "visibly clean" requirement will not be adequate. Molecular contamination would degrade Space Telescope optics to an unacceptable degree. a. In October 1981, the Space Telescope Science Working Group established specific contamination control criteria which they said were essential to achieving the scientific objectives of the telescope. Has NASA now accepted these criteria and incorporated them into the telescope development contracts? b. What is the estimated cost and schedule impact of meeting the contamination control criteria established by the Science Working Group? C. The Science Working Group has described its criteria as being consistent with the minimum performance requirements of the telescope. If NASA has not accepted the contamination control criteria established by the Science Working Group, what level of contamination control does the Agency plan to require? What is the estimated cost and schedule impact of this requirement? What is the extent of performance loss which will result from not meeting the criteria established by the Science Working Group. Answer contamination NASA/Lockheed 38: |