New Orleans workers caused problems with NASA’s Artemis program | Business News

An undertrained and inexperienced workforce at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Center in New Orleans is a major reason for the “deterioration” of quality control for the Artemis project, which is set to send astronauts to the moon and then Mars in the coming decades, according to the space agency’s internal watchdog.

In a scathing report released Thursday, NASA’s Office of Inspector General cited rocket maker Boeing, which employs more than 1,000 people at Michoud, for dozens of problems with its Space Launch System rockets assembled there.

An upgraded version of the SLS rocket is more than seven years behind schedule and $1 billion over budget, and federal monitors have found 71 problems with the Michoud-based project, ranging from minor to potentially serious.

“This is a high number…for a spaceflight system at this stage of development and reflects a recurring and degraded state of product quality control,” said the report, which covers a two-year period from 2021 to 2023.

Economic development officials have long touted the Artemis program as one of the bright spots in the New Orleans area. But the report says Michoud’s problems are largely due to a “lack of trained and experienced aerospace personnel at Boeing,” which is “due in part to Michoud’s location in New Orleans and lower employee compensation than other aerospace competitors.”

Boeing declined to comment on the report, referring questions to NASA. NASA did not respond to a request for comment but included its response to the audit findings, which include a plan to require Boeing to implement more rigorous training standards.

Michael Hecht, president and CEO of GNO Inc., whose economic development organization has made diversifying the economy a top priority, declined to comment on the report.

The Artemis Program

The Michoud Assembly Plant east of New Orleans has been a vital cog in NASA’s rocket programs since the Apollo rockets were built there in the 1960s.

NASA’s Artemis SLS rockets have been under development at the 47-acre facility for nearly a decade. An earlier version of the SLS rocket that powered Artemis I was built at Michoud and successfully launched in 2022, traveling 280,000 miles into space without a crew.

The issues cited in the audit relate to the development of the upgraded version of the SLS rocket, which was originally scheduled to launch in 2021 and is not expected to be ready until the Artemis IV mission, now scheduled for mid-2028.

The report blames not only delays and cost overruns in Michoud’s case, but also quality and labor problems. Federal observers have cited those issues as one of many problems plaguing that particular aspect of the rocket program.

Deficiencies and potential danger

Of the 71 issues cited in the report, 47 were deemed minor. The other 24 were more worrisome. In one case, inspectors found debris — shavings of Teflon or metal — inside a liquid hydrogen rocket fuel tank, “which can damage equipment and potentially injure the crew,” the report said.

In another example, inspectors noticed that a liquid oxygen fuel tank dome, a critical component of the SLS rocket, had not been welded properly and “did not meet NASA specifications.”

The report said the welding problems were caused by Boeing’s “inexperienced technicians and inadequate planning and supervision of work orders” and ultimately caused a seven-month delay in the program.

“Furthermore, quality control deficiencies, if not identified and corrected, could increase the safety risk to the integrated spacecraft,” the report said.

The problems were identified by 30 third-party monitors that NASA employs to oversee Boeing operations at the facility.

Boeing has faced numerous problems in recent years, including quality and safety issues with its 737 jetliners. Earlier this month, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) criticized the airline for failing to detect manufacturing errors that led to the door falling off an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX mid-flight. The FAA is also conducting unannounced visits to Boeing facilities. An investigation into the manufacturer is not expected to be concluded until 2025, the NTSB said earlier this week.

Boeing laid off an unspecified number of employees at Michoud, as well as other facilities across the country, earlier this year in response to delays to the Artemis program. The audit report covers a period that ended months before the layoffs took effect.