Their costs are on the upside.
Several of NASA's top private contractors are suffering from budget overruns and delays that have forced taxpayers to cough billions of extra coughs.
Between 2021 and 2024, the space agency fired around $600 billion in contracts, recovering $7.7 million in civil fines and $9.6 million in criminal compensation, while the Treasury Department recovered $33.5 million in fraudulent and wasted spending. Research from the Transparency Advocacy Group opens books that are attracting attention.
Among the worst offenders, Boeing was forced to make 71 “corrective action requests” from the government in relation to the product between 2021 and 2023, citing NASA found. Watchdog Probe data.
Most notably, aerospace companies were tasked with developing the Boeing Star Liner, a spacecraft intended to allow crews to enter and exit the International Space Station (ISS).
Last summer, Starliner made an international headline after Thruster Glitch was stuck for months after two astronauts (Sny Williams and Butch Willmore) over an eight-day mission.
That same Boeing Star Liner costs about $1.8 billion more than estimated, and its development ran six years behind. Inspector general report found.
The spacecraft was originally intended to close in 2017 at a price of $962 million, but is now expected to reach $2.8 billion.
NASA then announced plans to launch SpaceX Dragon on Sunday to bring Williams and Wilmore home.
In all, NASA paid a contract of about $6.4 billion with Boeing between 2021 and 2025, making it the second-highest pay contractor in the space agency, after California Institute of Technology ($9.8 billion) and SpaceX ($5.4 billion) during that period.
Much of the spending on Boeing has set aside $2.7 billion for Ares 1 Upper Stage, according to Open Secrets. Costs listed on usaspending.gov.
Ares 1 Upper Stage was part of a project that was eventually discarded in 2010 and successfully completed NASA's Space Launch System (SLS).
SLS is famous for falling overruns and delays, and taxpayer costs At least $23.8 billionand first released in 2022.
NASA's contract funding is also plagued by criminal conduct, opening a book highlighting the agency's Watchdog findings that have been “24 convictions, 14 suspensions, and 20 inhibitions” between 2021 and 2024.
In one case, Florida government subcontractor CEO pleaded guilty In March 2024, he made nearly 200 quality control documents to doctors to help his products pass the convocation. Executive Stephen Lukens was ordered to confiscate more than $270,000 that his company received for tinsel material.
I also received Boeing $1.4 billion To support the development of a “Space Launch System Production and Evolution Agreement” to manufacture key components for NASA's upcoming missions.
The company has been firing fire in recent years due to quality control issues, including the largest Boeing 737 plane, after 346 passengers were killed in 2018 and 2019.
The post contacted Boeing and NASA for comments.
SpaceX has won $5.4 billion from its NASA contract. Human landing system It is expected to be used in Moon Missions, $2.3 billion To take astronauts to the ISS.
Elon Musk, the company's CEO, has led the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to drive costs reductions across the federal government.
As part of that effort, Musk is diving deep into government procurement and contracts.
The book that opens the book did not flag any major cost overruns or delays on SpaceX's side in a brief valuation of NASA's transactions.
Other top NASA contractors from 2021 to 2024 include Lockheed Martin ($2.8 billion) Northrop Grumman ($2.0 billion), Jacobs Engineering Group ($1.9 billion), John Hopkins University ($1.5 billion), Blue Origin ($1.2 billion), KBR ($1.2 billion), and Aerojet Rocket Daine Holdings ($1.1 billion).
NASA's budget last year was approximately $24.9 billion, up from $25.4 billion in 2023.
