NASA "overpaid" Boeing by hundreds of millions of dollars on a fixed contract to develop a spaceship to carry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), an audit report has said, compensation it called "unnecessary".
The US has relied on Russia to transport its crews to the ISS since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, but has hired Boeing and SpaceX under multi-billion dollar contracts, with the two companies already two years behind schedule.
"We found that NASA agreed to pay an additional USD 287.2 million above Boeing's fixed prices to mitigate a perceived 18-month gap in ISS flights anticipated in 2019," the inspector general's report issued Thursday said.
"We question USD 187 million of these price increases as unnecessary costs," it added.
The auditors determined the amount of additional spending was not required because the risk of such a gap occurring was minimal, and SpaceX was not provided an opportunity to propose a solution "even though the company previously offered shorter production lead times than Boeing."
But the report's authors added: "We acknowledge the benefit of hindsight and appreciate the pressures faced by NASA managers at the time to keep the program on schedule to the extent possible."
NASA contested the findings, saying in a written response that "We do not agree that the dollar amounts cited were questionable, unnecessary, or unreasonable."
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