The inspector general of NASA has stated that the organization needs to improve its coordination of international partnerships and overcome obstacles such as export control in its Artemis lunar exploration campaign.
NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report on January 17 that found strong international interest in Artemis, which NASA can use to lower the overall cost of sending humans back to the moon. They said that countries' contributions to Artemis missions and the 23 nations that have signed the Artemis Accords, which outline best practices for sustainable space exploration, demonstrate this interest.According to the report, "Nasa's Artemis campaign has drawn significant interest from space agencies around the world" because of the "scientific and exploration potential" of Mars and the Moon. It was mentioned that, as of October 2022, NASA had concluded 54 agreements with other space agencies and governments regarding Artemis. Twenty-three of them were assigned to the European Space Agency and the Japanese space agency JAXA, while the remaining ones were assigned to 14 other nations.
However, the report stated that there was no "overarching strategy" to manage requirements and expectations and that coordination of those agreements was done on an ad hoc basis. NASA finds it difficult to manage expectations regarding an international partner's potential contribution due to the absence of a coordinated strategy, which also leads to confusion regarding what the international partner should contribute,” the OIG said.
The report compared this management to the International Space Station program, which uses an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) to manage a detailed structure of panels and boards to coordinate the roles of international partners. NASA and its partners agree that this agreement cannot be extended to additional Artemis activities despite the fact that contributions to the lunar Gateway are being managed using the space station IGA.
Export control is a major obstacle to international cooperation that the report highlights. According to the OIG, "routinely limit NASA's Artemis collaborations with international partners and inhibit future collaborations" are the consequences of the United States' implementation of export controls.
For instance, astronauts from NASA partners who have not been officially assigned to a mission are unable to participate in Artemis-related projects due to export control regulations. Despite the fact that Gateway is a global program with Japanese contributions, the report noted that JAXA has not sent an astronaut to the Johnson Space Center to prepare for Gateway missions due to limited data access.
The Export Administration Regulation (EAR), which is administered by the Commerce Department, and the more stringent International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which is administered by the State Department, create a muddled web of export control regulations for components. For instance, the European Service Module for the Orion spacecraft as well as the adapter that connects it to the crew module of the Orion are each separately categorized as falling under EAR. However, ITAR applies to the hardware when the service module and adapter are combined.
In spite of these difficulties, the OIG report came to the conclusion that international collaboration on Artemis had cost benefits. It cited a study by Aerospace Corporation that showed that NASA projects with international contributions experienced less cost growth than those without such collaborations.
The report came to the conclusion that NASA should do more to take advantage of cost-sharing, noting that only 6% of the costs associated with the first three Artemis missions will be borne by international partners, compared to 25% of the costs associated with operating the US portion of the ISS. International partner participation and cost management strategies that are more efficient would better position NASA to achieve its long-term Artemis objectives, as the current budget profile for NASA projects Artemis costs of $93 billion between fiscal years 2012 and 2025.
Ten recommendations, including changes to export controls, were made in the report to NASA regarding ways to improve Artemis coordination with international partners. With the exception of one that requested "a detailed gap analysis and cost estimate" for missions beyond Artemis 4, NASA accepted all of them. In a response included in the report, NASA stated that the Artemis effort as a whole was not "bounded in such a way to accommodate conducting a defensible cost estimate on a multi-decade campaign."
The report was made available by OIG on the same day that the NASA Advisory Council met, and one of its "priority focus areas" is international collaboration. The report was not up for discussion at the meeting, but committee members generally praised NASA for its efforts to recruit international partners for Artemis.
Kay Bailey Hutchison, a former senator and U.S. ambassador to NATO, stated, "The goal of Artemis is to be the largest coalition of space partners in history." That is going to become a reality because of all the work that is being done.
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