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Bechtel’s $1.3 billion launch pad project for NASA is one step closer to completion after a series of delays.
The Reston, Virginia-based contractor announced that it did so successfully lifted and placed the first tower moduleTower Module 4, on the space agency’s Mobile Launcher 2 project at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, according to a Jan. 6 news release.
But the company’s announcement came after an August 2024 report NASA Office of the Inspector General which detailed repeated extensions of the project’s schedule and budget and placed much of the blame on Bechtel. The paper followed a previous audit performed by the OIG in June 2022.
Balloon flight costs
The report pegs the original ML2 contract, awarded to Bechtel in June 2019, at $383 million, with completion expected in March 2023.
Once the structure is complete, it will be integral to NASA’s mission to return humans to the Moon through its Artemis program, with a focus on Artemis IVwhich will send astronauts to live in the first lunar space station, known as Gateway.
After delays during the COVID-19 pandemic, NASA estimated in December 2023 that the contract had grown to $1.3 billion, with completion extended to November 2026, the document said. Then, in June 2024, the agency told Congress that the total costs of the project, not just the Bechtel portion of the contract, would be $1.8 billion, and completion was delayed until September 2027.
The inspector general concluded in his report that the project is now likely to exceed $2.7 billion, with $2.5 billion going to Bechtel, more than three times the project’s original total estimate. He also projected that construction completion will not come until 2029, after Artemis IV’s current launch date of September 2028.
“Our projections are based on the substantial cost growth incurred on the Bechtel contract over the past 3 years, previous performance issues observed during design with the production of detailed drawings for steel fabrication and the launcher weight management, and the significant amount of construction work that remains,” the OIG wrote.
Different timelines
However, Bechtel anticipates a completion date of November 2026, while NASA said in a response to a draft report that it expects the project to be completed by 2027.
The OIG acknowledged that NASA officials disagreed with some of its findings.
In response to a draft of the July final report, NASA’s Management of Exploration Systems Development Mission said: “ESDMD disagrees with OIG’s projected ML2 cost estimate of $2.7 billion. Simply using a straight-line extrapolation, as OIG did, does not accurately reflect the current situation of development”.
The same document praised Bechtel’s work at another point, stating: “Bechtel recently completed a critical integration milestone two weeks ahead of schedule, marking a critical advance in its build and assembly capabilities within the Artemis campaign.”
History of the project
Bechtel construction of the launch site began in August 2023. He responded to the OIG’s report on September 26, 2024, noting that the project’s completion date has remained unchanged for the past two years. It also said it was inaccurate to attribute all of the $594 million in contract delays to Bechtel’s performance, along with what Bechtel claims are several other factual errors.
“Cost increases and schedule delays since the start of the ML2 project have been multi-faceted, as a result of changes to the contract, both targeted and circumstantial (eg, impacts of COVID-19 and weather-related delays ), as well as related impacts a [Bechtel National Inc.’s] performance,” Bechtel said in response.
The company told Construction Dive in an emailed statement that it found the report deeply disappointing and that has approached the project with safety in mind.
“While we understand that the OIG is responsible for issuing its view on NASA and Bechtel’s progress on cost and schedule, our primary commitment remains the delivery of a safe and ‘high quality,’ the statement said.
Onward and upward
The placement of the first tower module marked the beginning of a new phase of rapid vertical installation of the remaining tower modules, which the builder will successively stack on top of each other over the coming months. Once completed, the structure will reach its total height of 38 stories.
NASA and Bechtel are using a modular approach to building the tower, which the contractor says reduces risks to workers by building the structure lower to the ground.
Module 4, which weighed more than 550,000 pounds, had to be lifted by crane and was built from components delivered by more than 110 trucks, according to the press release. The tower took more than a month to assemble.
