NASA does not know what it will cost to service the Hubble telescope or to return to flight the shuttle fleet needed for the mission, a U.S. report said.
The General Accountability Office reviewed NASA’s cost estimates for both returning the shuttle fleet to operation and using a shuttle flight to service the Hubble Space Telescope so it would continue to operate.
Its report said the costs of the Hubble mission — estimated by NASA to be $1.7 billion to $2.4 billion — were based on insufficient information. Some parts of the cost estimate, such as for sustaining engineering, were not supported by record keeping at a detailed enough level to estimate expenses for the mission.
There also are many uncertainties — NASA does not yet have, for example, a design for autonomous inspection and repair, the report said.
More importantly, perhaps, the GAO found the agency does not yet have a firm grasp on the real cost of returning the shuttle fleet to flight status. It reported NASA’s cost estimate of $2 billion lacked detail and supporting documentation.
