NASA's efforts to return astronauts to the lunar surface and build an entire space station circling the Moon just got even more expensive. The space agency's gigantic Space Launch System (SLS), a rocket designed to launch its Orion capsule to the Moon, will need an entirely separate launch tower, dubbed Mobile Launcher 2, starting with Artemis IV. That’s because that mission is designed to kickstart the construction of NASA's Lunar Gateway space station, an outpost in the Moon's orbit, no earlier than September 2028.
The additional launch mass means that NASA will require an even more powerful variant of its already towering SLS - and a beefier launcher to boot. Building the tower won't come cheap, with NASA estimating that it'll cost a whopping $1.8 billion and be delivered by September 2027. Now, according to a scathing new report by NASA's Office of Inspector General (OIG), the tower may end up being even more expensive than initially thought.
The office projects that the total cost could reach $2.7 billion - a bewildering price tag that could greatly undermine NASA's continued efforts to build out a more permanent presence on and around the Moon. 'Lord help us, the new cost estimate of NASA's Mobile Launcher-2 project is now a mind-boggling $2.7 billion,' Ars Technica senior space editor Eric Berger tweeted.
The SLS has already cost NASA dearly, literally and figuratively. The project, a keystone of the agency's Artemis program, has suffered years of delays and many billions of dollars of budget overruns. Costs have spiraled so far out of control that it's caught the attention of lawmakers.
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