NASA Cancels Spacesuit Contract to Avoid Litigation

By Nancy Atkinson - August 18, 2008 at 12:18 PM UTC | Space Policy
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[/caption] NASA has terminated a contract with the company it hired to design and construct new spacesuits for use with the new Orion spacecraft after determining it made a mistake in evaluating costs. In terminating the contract NASA hopes to avoid litigation. In June, NASA announced it had selected Oceaneering International, Inc. to build the new spacesuits, but Hamilton Sundstrand, the lead contractor that has supplied spacesuits for NASA since the 1960's filed a formal protest with the Government Accounting Office on the decision, asking NASA to review its reasoning on the contract award. Hamilton Sundstrand disagreed with the way NASA evaluated the costs for their proposal. NASA has now issued a press release saying "corrective action is appropriate," and they have "determined that a compliance issue requires the termination of the contract" with Oceaneering "for the convenience of the government." It appears NASA did some bad math, or used questionable processes to make its decision for the contract.

Hamilton Sundstrand claimed it never received adequate information from NASA about why its bid did not win. Also, NASA failed to request a "cost-accounting standards disclosure statement from Oceaneering during its deliberations," according to a

Wall Street Journal article

. A government accounting office letter also said that "The agency must re-examine both offers' cost proposals. To the extent that any irregularities are identified, appropriate re-evaluation must be made."

The three-phase $745 million contract called for 109 suits, 24 of which will be the lunar suits.

NASA may have start again from scratch and reopen the bidding for the spacesuit contract. In a statement Friday, Hamilton Sundstrand said its wants "corrective action" and they are concerned that revisions to the proposal may not correct the "significant errors and deficiencies in the procurement we have protested thus far."

Sources:

Wall Street Journal,

NASA press release

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com