Ding-dong! The Exploration Upper Stage is dead

Source: Ars Technica

Now, you might think NASA would ask industry for solutions to this problem. After all, United Launch Alliance was developing a more powerful upper stage for its Vulcan rocket, the Centaur V, that used the same propellant as the core stage of the SLS rocket. And Blue Origin was also developing a powerful upper stage engine, the BE‑3U, powered by hydrogen. These options were cheaper, available, and … summarily ignored.

10 years, billions of dollars, and not much to show for it

Congress, smelling jobs, wanted NASA to develop a brand‑new upper stage. So in 2016, lawmakers allocated $85 million for preliminary work on the upper stage, and have since awarded more than $3.5 billion for the development of a rocket’s second stage.

The stage relies on engines (RL‑10s) that have been flying in space for six decades. Yet a decade later, the Exploration Upper Stage remains years from being ready to fly.

In some ways, the Exploration Upper Stage was the perfect vehicle for pork. It not only spread largesse among Boeing and Aerojet Rocketdyne (for the engines), but it also necessitated a massive new launch tower in Florida—good for the Exploration Ground Systems program at Kennedy Space Center.

The original cost estimates of these projects are instructive. Boeing’s initial contract to build the Exploration Upper Stage started at $962 million, and NASA planned to launch the rocket on the second flight of the SLS in 2021 (source). As for the launch tower, the initial estimate was $383 million, but it has since ballooned to north of $2 billion (source).

We are talking billions and billions of dollars for a relatively straightforward upper stage, using off‑the‑shelf engines and a large launch tower.