Cape Canaveral, Fla. - NASA’s Office of Inspector General published its final report on Monday regarding the agency’s launch infrastructure and warns that the equipment is “dated” and does not provide the capacity to meet the growing demands of the agency and its partners at Kennedy Space Center.
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The report is in direct correlation to an audit that was performed to assess the state of NASA’s launch infrastructure and its ability to meet mission needs at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
According to the report, the Office found that the main launch facilities and support infrastructure at Kennedy, which were constructed in the 1960s for the Apollo Program and later modified to support the Space Shuttle Program that ended in 2011, are increasingly dated.
The report went onto say that the same launch facilities and support infrastructure also lack the capacity to meet the demands of the burgeoning commercial space industry.
READ: NASA’s Launch Infrastructure Report
All this comes as Kennedy continues to partner with the government “commercial space agencies such as such as Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), to provide the investment and launch vehicles necessary for both NASA and commercial industry,” according to the report.
The report also specified specific areas at Kennedy that the Office believes need the most work.
For example, Launch Complexes like Complex 39A and 39B at Kennedy were specifically identified in the report as needing major upgrades given how much they are used.
“At Kennedy, demand for super heavy-lift launch vehicles for NASA and Department of Defense missions is driving the need for additional launch pads that can accommodate these vehicles, but locations for new launch pads are limited and will require extensive time and resources to develop,” according to the report.
Officials estimate Kennedy would need at least $1 billion to completely upgrade its launch infrastructure, despite the $250 million for infrastructure improvements through the H.R.1 reconciliation bill.
Officials also recommend that, “the Kennedy Space Center Director conduct a study to understand the effects of heavy vehicle traffic associated with sustained increases in launch-related transport activity on Kennedy roadways and establish a mitigation plan to address the impacts.”
The Office also stated that Kennedy and Wallops are set to “operate near capacity in the 2028 to 2029 time frame.”
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