NASA's Deep Space Network: Current Management Structure Is Not Conducive to Effectively Matching Resources with Future Requirements
Published: 2006-04-27T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: The President's Vision for Space Exploration calls for human and robotic missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. In response, over the next two decades, NASA may spend $100 billion on new technologies and facilities that will require reliable ground communications to achieve those missions. Presently, that communications capability is provided by NASA's Deep Space Network--a system of antennas located at three sites around the world. However, the Network faces challenges that may hinder its provision of current and future mission support. This report discusses (1) the significant operational challenges faced by the Deep Space Network and (2) the extent to which NASA is integrating the Network into its future communications plans.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: While NASA's Deep Space Network can meet most requirements of its current workload, it may not be able to meet near-term and future demand. The system--suffering from an aging, fragile infrastructure with some crucial components over 40 years old--has lost science data during routine operations and critical events. In addition, new customers find they must compete for this limited capacity, not just with each other, but also with legacy missions extended past their lifetimes, such as NASA's Voyager, that nonetheless return valuable science. Program officials doubt they can provide adequate coverage to an increasing set of new mission customers, especially if they increase dramatically under the President's Vision. The Deep Space Network's future utility is also in question because NASA does not currently match funding for space communications capabilities with agency wide space communications requirements. While NASA created an agency level entity to review the technical requirements for integrating assets like the network into an agency wide space communications architecture for the future, that entity does not address program level requirements nor influence investment decisions. Control over such requirements and funding remains with the mission directorates and programs themselves. This disconnect allows programs to invest in capabilities that may undercut agency wide goals for space communications. After this review was initiated, NASA began to study how to better manage this gap between agency-level requirements and program-level funding, but no recommendations for action have yet been proposed.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: In January 2004, the President outlined a Vision for Space Exploration that  In January 2004, the President outlined a Vision for Space Exploration that  calls for human and robotic missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Over  calls for human and robotic missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Over  the next two decades, NASA plans to spend over $100 billion to develop a  the next two decades, NASA plans to spend over $100 billion to develop a  number of new capabilities, supporting technologies, and facilities that are  number of new capabilities, supporting technologies, and facilities that are  critical to enabling these missions. These missions will have at least one  critical to enabling these missions. These missions will have at least one  thing in common: they will require a reliable network to handle all  thing in common: they will require a reliable network to handle all  communication functions for both manned and unmanned spacecraft.  communication functions for both manned and unmanned spacecraft.  Most of that functional capability for deep space communications  Most of that functional capability for deep space communications  currently resides in NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN).  currently resides in NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN).
DSN was established in 1959 to support NASA’s exploration of the solar  DSN was established in 1959 to support NASA’s exploration of the solar  system. According to agency officials, DSN is designed to communicate  system. According to agency officials, DSN is designed to communicate  with spacecraft at distances greater than 1.2 million miles from Earth—the  with spacecraft at distances greater than 1.2 million miles from Earth—the  distance defined as deep space. It is currently the only system of its nature  distance defined as deep space. It is currently the only system of its nature  with the capability to serve vast numbers of deep space missions. Since its  with the capability to serve vast numbers of deep space missions. Since its  inception, the network has returned extensive science data and has proven  inception, the network has returned extensive science data and has proven  to be a linchpin for successful space exploration missions. Its services are  to be a linchpin for successful space exploration missions. Its services are  used by NASA, other domestic organizations, and foreign space agencies.  used by NASA, other domestic organizations, and foreign space agencies.  However, over time, DSN officials have had to deal with maintaining an  However, over time, DSN officials have had to deal with maintaining an  aged infrastructure and managing coverage time for an increasing mission  aged infrastructure and managing coverage time for an increasing mission  set with limited capacity. In addition, although NASA has not made any  set with limited capacity. In addition, although NASA has not made any  definitive decisions in this regard, new deep space communications  definitive decisions in this regard, new deep space communications  requirements are envisioned to support projected missions to the moon.  requirements are envisioned to support projected missions to the moon.
In maintaining a reliable deep space communication system for the near  In maintaining a reliable deep space communication system for the near  term, while also preparing for the future, NASA will need to effectively  term, while also preparing for the future, NASA will need to effectively  manage its communication needs and the allocation of resources to meet  manage its communication needs and the allocation of resources to meet  them. As recently as 2003, the National Research Council reported that  them. As recently as 2003, the National Research Council reported that  DSN was suffering from insufficient communications capabilities and  DSN was suffering from insufficient communications capabilities and  occasional failures. In light of these issues, you asked us to: (1) identify the  occasional failures. In light of these issues, you asked us to: (1) identify the  challenges NASA’s DSN program faces in meeting its current and planned  challenges NASA’s DSN program faces in meeting its current and planned  space communications workload and (2) determine the extent NASA is  space communications workload and (2) determine the extent NASA is  integrating DSN into its space communications plans for the future.  integrating DSN into its space communications plans for the future.
To conduct our work, we reviewed documents and data related to the  operations and capabilities of DSN as well as NASA-wide strategic  planning documents about the Vision for Space Exploration. We  interviewed program officials as well as contractor personnel about  challenges they face in managing and operating DSN. Further, we  collected and analyzed information related to space communications  architecture management at NASA and held discussions with NASA space  communications officials about future space communications architecture  requirements, what assets the architecture will include, and how its  development is being managed. We also held discussions with NASA’s  Space Communications Organization Study Group, which was established  during the course of our review to develop options for how to manage  space communications at NASA. We met with officials at NASA  Headquarters and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), as well as ITT  Industries contractors at their offices in Monrovia, Calif., and at the DSN  facility in Goldstone, Calif. Complete details of our scope and  methodology can be found in appendix I. We performed our review from  May 2005 to April 2006 in accordance with generally accepted government  auditing standards.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: NASA established DSN over 40 years ago with the intention of  coordinating all deep space communications through a single ground  system to improve efficiency and minimize duplication. Today, DSN  consists of communications antennas at three major sites around the  world—Goldstone, Calif.; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. These  sites are specifically positioned to offer complete coverage to deep space  mission craft regardless of their positions around the Earth. DSN officials  informed us that while contractor personnel operate all three sites, NASA  owns the physical assets and is responsible for funding all operations at  the sites. Each site has a 70-meter antenna, which can provide  communications with the most distant spacecraft, and several smaller  antennas that can facilitate communications with closer spacecraft or can  be arrayed to communicate with more distant missions. NASA’s Jet  Propulsion Laboratory is responsible for management of DSN and also  serves as the distribution point for data collected from deep space.
DSN supports an average of 35 to 40 deep space missions each year.  According to program officials, as a mission is being developed, a  representative from the DSN program works with the mission team to  establish the amount of coverage the mission will need from DSN assets  during its lifetime. This coverage includes the amount of time per day for  routine communications and also critical coverage of major mission  events. In most cases, missions must negotiate with the DSN program  because they desire more coverage than DSN can provide. Once the  amount of coverage time is established and major mission events are  scheduled, DSN commits to that coverage in a Service Agreement with the  mission. Within the agreement, DSN commits to providing coverage for   95 percent of the time agreed to with its mission customers, while the  remaining 5 percent allows for unexpected disruptions during that  coverage. This 95 percent commitment almost guarantees that all critical  mission events will be covered without disruption. Once this is put into  place, missions are generally free to trade time amongst themselves if  priorities change or a particular mission gets kicked off the network due  to an unexpected anomaly in the system. The missions that DSN supports  are not charged for their usage of the system, unless they require a unique  technology that DSN must add to its system in order to provide coverage.  This is a relatively rare phenomenon, however. DSN is primarily funded  through its managing entity, the Science Mission Directorate, and receives  resources consistent with its performance the previous year and its  previous year’s budget.
DSN works in conjunction with NASA’s other space communications  assets to provide coverage to missions at all distances from the Earth.   The Ground Network provides communications capabilities to spacecraft  in low-Earth orbit. Additionally, the Space Network, including the  Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, is an Earth-based satellite relay  system that also facilitates missions in low-Earth orbit. In order for a  spacecraft to receive support from all of these communications assets,  NASA must ensure they are coordinated and can provide the capabilities  for which they are intended.
Throughout its history, NASA has had different management structures  trying to achieve this coordination. According to NASA officials, from the  Apollo missions in the 1960s through 1995, space communications was  managed through an agency wide communications entity with budgetary  authority to provide appropriate investments in system capabilities.   In 1995, this management and budget authority was devolved to a central  contract managed out of the Johnson Space Center in an effort to cut costs  and streamline maintenance to the assets. The savings from this  realignment were never realized for the agency and the communications  assets were severely underfunded as a result of how they were managed  under this arrangement. Subsequently, management and budget authority  for these assets were brought back to NASA headquarters in 2001 and  aligned with the mission directorate responsible for the customers each  asset served. NASA then created the Space Communication Coordination  and Integration Board to oversee the technical integration of these assets  into a seamless space communications architecture. This is how space  communications assets, including the DSN program, are managed  currently at NASA.
The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 contains a requirement that the NASA  Administrator submit a plan for updating NASA’s space communications  architecture for low-Earth orbital operations and deep space exploration  so that it is capable of meeting NASA’s needs over the next 20 years. This  plan is due to be submitted to the House Committee on Science and the  Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation no later  than February 17, 2007. In addition, the Conference Report accompanying  the Science, State, Justice, Commerce and Related Agencies  Appropriations Law, 2006 requires that NASA include a 10-year funding  profile for DSN in its fiscal year 2007 budget request.
section_title: DSN Challenges Could Hamper Its Ability to Meet Future Mission Requirements
paragraphs: DSN is currently able to meet most requirements of its existing workload.  However, according to program officials, DSN’s current operational ability  is no predictor of future success, and they have significant concerns about  the ability of the system to continue to meet customer requirements into  the future. These concerns are based on the system’s aging infrastructure  and projected additional workload on top of servicing existing missions.
subsections: section_title: Sustainability of DSN’s Infrastructure Is Unknown
paragraphs: DSN suffers from an aged, fragile infrastructure. Significant parts of that  infrastructure—including many antennas—were first built in the 1950s and  1960s and are showing their age. DSN program officials stated that the  Goldstone complex is down, on average, 16 hours per week for  maintenance and repairs due to problems associated with its age. While  Goldstone contains some of the oldest equipment in the system and the  poor condition of much of its equipment characterizes the underlying  fragility of the network, operational disruptions occur across the entire  network. For instance, the 70-meter dishes are widely regarded by  program officials and mission customers as increasingly fragile, which  calls into question expectation of their continued reliability. In fact,  mission customers shared similar concerns that DSN’s infrastructure is  not in the appropriate condition that it should be to support their missions.  With increasing use of these assets, they fear service will only deteriorate  and more disruptions will occur during service to their missions. Program  officials and mission customers provided some examples, as follows, of  disruptions that have occurred during service as a result of infrastructure  deterioration:    During a critical event for the Deep Impact Mission on July 4, 2005,  corrosion of the sub reflector on the 70-meter dish at DSN’s Madrid site  caused an unexpected disruption in service. In response, program  managers had to shift coverage to alternative antennas. While they  were able to provide adequate coverage of the event for the Deep  Impact Mission, the shift to back-up antennas forced other users off at  that time, which meant they lost coverage.
In October 2005, a significant power disruption caused by corrosion to  a major power line resulted in multiple antennas at the Goldstone  complex going offline, resulting in several hours of downtime and a  subsequent loss of scientific data.
In November 2005, failure of a prime network server resulted in several  hours of unexpected downtime, which in turn caused considerable loss  of data to four research projects. During this anomaly, the Stardust,  Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey and Mars Global Surveyor  missions lost a total of 241 minutes of coverage to their missions.
Program officials also expressed concern about the possibility of massive  antenna failure due to metal fatigue. Ultimately, such a failure would result  from a partial or total collapse of an antenna structure. Although no DSN  antenna has yet collapsed from fatigue, an antenna in West Virginia similar  in design and age to those already used by the DSN program collapsed  unexpectedly in 1988. DSN program managers are in the process of finding  an engineering firm to conduct a survey of the program’s antenna assets to  assess their structural reliability. Beyond that action, program officials rely  mostly on their experience and visual observations to assess the condition  of these assets.
Deferred maintenance also poses a significant challenge to the  sustainability of DSN assets. Since 2002, the program has consistently  deferred approximately $30 million in maintenance projects each year.  These projects are commonly associated with infrastructure that is not  directly related to system performance and have been given lower priority  when more pressing needs limit the system’s ability to provide coverage  for its customers. For example, several roadway, water and electrical  projects at the Goldstone facility have consistently been deferred due to  the need to address system maintenance needs considered to have become  more pressing. Although the program does seek to prioritize its most  pressing projects and direct resources to them once its budget is allotted,  operating aging facilities and systems inevitably results in the need for  new repairs rising unexpectedly, which forces program managers to  constantly have to juggle priorities to address them.
section_title: Limited Capacity to Provide Coverage Is Exacerbated By An Increasing Mission Set
paragraphs: DSN also faces increasing competition between new and old users for  coverage time on the system. There is a growing demand for a level of  service that DSN is not likely to be able to provide to its customers. DSN  promises 95 percent availability to its mission customers for routine  mission coverage. According to program officials, the remaining 5 percent  is reserved for unexpected failures and downtimes during mission  coverage. They said DSN can maintain its 95 percent commitment to its  mission customers within its current mission set. However, as that mission  set increases, officials become less confident in their ability to continue to  achieve that level of service.
New missions are continuing to increase as they have in the past—by  some 350 percent over the last 20 years. By the year 2020, DSN is projected  to be required to support twice the number of missions it does currently.  DSN officials thus find themselves faced with the need to balance this new  demand with an equally compelling demand from existing “legacy”  missions that have remained operational beyond their original lifetimes  but are still returning science data and need to be maintained. Such legacy  missions include the following:    The Voyager missions—two similar spacecraft launched in 1977 to  conduct close-up studies of Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn’s rings, and the  larger moons of the two planets—are still supported by DSN today  even though their primary missions were completed in 1989. Each  mission receives approximately 12 hours of coverage each day using  one of the network’s 70-meter dishes.
The Mars Rover missions, although scheduled to end their prime  missions in mid-2004, have gone well beyond their forecasted lifetimes.  Program officials pointed out that even though they did not have a role  in the decision to extend the missions, the program continues to  allocate funds to support their operations through present day.
It is up to the DSN program to determine how best to provide service to its  many mission customers, but this task is becoming increasingly complex.  The effort to balance conflicting program priorities is a continuing struggle  for DSN program managers. So far, DSN has been able to avoid stressing  the capacity of the system because a select number of missions it was  scheduled to support were either canceled or failed before requiring  significant support. However, according to program officials, if the  number of missions the system is scheduled to support begins to increase,  the amount of service the system can provide will be limited. Further,  officials expect that any commitments to provide support for manned  missions under the coming Vision for Space Exploration, in addition to  what it currently must support, will prevent them from being able to  provide necessary coverage to new mission customers or maintain the  service guarantee of 95 percent availability to any customer.
In addition, the DSN program is planning to begin decommissioning its   26 meter antennas in 2006 due to costs of maintenance associated with  their age. Officials told us that they believe the program’s remaining   34- and 70-meter antennas will be unable to sustain the anticipated  workload in the very near future, and one projection is that the system will  reach capacity in 2013. If this occurs, the opportunity to continue adding  new mission customers will be limited and the potential for lost deep  space science is significant.
section_title: Existing Management Structure Does Not Allow NASA to Match Space Communications Resources With Requirements
paragraphs: DSN’s future utility is also in question because NASA currently does not  have a mechanism in place to match funding for space communications  assets with program requirements, such as infrastructure and technology  development needs, from an agency wide perspective. At the end of 2003,  NASA created the Space Communication Coordination and Integration  Board with the intent of reviewing requirements for integration of space  communications assets into a seamless architecture, but according to  agency officials, the Board does not review individual program  requirements or have any authority over the allocation of resources to the  space communications programs. Instead, funding for space  communications capabilities is controlled by the individual  communications programs and their associated mission directorates, who  may not consider agency wide goals when making investments. This  disconnect between requirements and resources has caused program level  requirements to be given low priority by the agency, which in turn has  forced programs to make tradeoffs to maintain functionality and has  offered the potential for programs to make investments that may undercut  agency wide goals for space communications. In light of this problem,  NASA has recently established a task group to identify ways to better  address how to match agency requirements with program resources.
subsections: section_title: Agency Space Communications Oversight Board Establishes Limited Requirements
paragraphs: At the end of 2003, NASA created the Space Communication Coordination  and Integration Board to establish technical requirements for the  integration of NASA’s space communications assets into a seamless  communications architecture for the future. According to NASA officials,  the Board is technical in nature and not intended to manage space  communications, but rather focus on integrating the architecture. Further,  officials said that no other agency-level entity reviews requirements for  individual communications programs or establishes broader mission  requirements for space communications. As a result, they informed us that  program requirements, such as infrastructure and technology development  needs, have consistently been given low priority by the agency. They said  that the DSN program is forced to make tradeoffs to maintain  functionality, but it is not able to fully address its requirements and has  concerns about its ability to continue supporting the operations for which  it is entrusted.
Currently, identification of appropriate investment resources (in line with  decisions made about the architecture) is performed by the mission  directorate with responsibility over the program and the program’s  customers. There is no overarching entity for space communications  management at NASA to consider the specific investment needs of the  programs and direct funding accordingly. And while all programs are  supposed to consider the broader needs of the agency and other programs  in their investment decisions, officials informed us that there is no formal  oversight mechanism to ensure that investment decisions made at the  program level are in line with those broader requirements.
As a result of this mismatch between agency level requirements and  investment decisions for the programs that support those requirements,  NASA has limited ability to prevent competing programs from making  investments that, while supporting individual program requirements,  undercut broader agency goals. For example, several agency officials  noted both the Deep Space Network and the Ground Network programs  recently were on a path to develop separate array technologies to support  overlapping requirements for the same lunar missions, which would have  undercut agency efforts to create a seamless, integrated architecture for  space communications and would have represented unnecessary  duplication of effort and added costs. But officials said these pilot efforts  were terminated after much of the planning for them had taken place.  However, the termination was a result of budget constraints and lack of  clearly defined requirements, as opposed to a decision by an authority  with an agency wide investment perspective. In addition, another potential  DSN customer—the Solar Dynamic Observatory—recognized that DSN  could not provide it with the service it needed, so it invested in its own  communications antennas to provide the coverage it needed. Such  duplication undermines the original intent of DSN to be an efficient, single  network for NASA’s deep space communications on Earth.
section_title: NASA Efforts Address Mis- Match Between Requirements, Resources
paragraphs: During the course of our review, NASA established a task group to address  how best to manage the agency’s space communications programs so  program resources are invested in a way that supports agency wide goals.  The task group has yet to make any recommendations to address these  issues.
Currently, the task group must consider two primary competing  viewpoints within the agency. One viewpoint holds that the current  structure of space communications, in which mission directorates and  programs control resources, is ideal because it allows communications  support to be controlled by the same entity that establishes and funds the  programs that use the system. For example, DSN is funded by the Science  Mission Directorate, which also supports the vast majority of missions that  the DSN serves. Some agency officials believe that this approach provides  better customer service, since resource trade-offs can be made by those  closest to both the customers and the service provider. However, under  this current structure, maintenance requirements for DSN have  consistently been deemed a low priority.
Alternatively, others in the agency point to the success of a more  centralized space communications structure, as was in place before 1995.  Under this structure, resource decisions can be made in light of an overall  agency perspective on which communications program can best fulfill  agency wide communications goals. However, one official suggested that  under this structure, maintenance requirements for DSN could become an  even lower priority as the requirements of other programs are considered.  In the former case, a program like DSN must compete for funding against  individual missions. In the latter case, a program like DSN will compete for  funding against other space communications assets.
section_title: Conclusion
paragraphs: By establishing DSN as the primary communications system for  supporting deep space missions, NASA will be reliant on the system for  mission successes—both now and in the distant future. By virtue of this  reliance, NASA has a responsibility to ensure that the system is  operationally sound and meets user needs. The system faces challenges  that call into question how well it will continue to be able to adequately  support deep space missions. The potential for more significant system  failure and major disruption to the deep space exploration program, both  manned and unmanned, looms large if nothing is done to address the  condition of DSN. As NASA continues to depend on the program for  meeting its deep space communications requirements, the program and  the agency will have to determine what those requirements are and how  they can best meet those requirements with a viable system for the future.  Establishing these requirements in terms more comprehensive than just  being able to provide coverage for 95 percent of committed time will  provide for a better understanding of what is needed by the program.  Furthermore, quantification and characterization of such requirements in  more comprehensive terms will be critical to the development of a plan as  required under the 2005 NASA Authorization Act.
As NASA prepares to take on extensive exploration initiatives under the  President’s Vision for Space Exploration, the agency needs to position  itself to make investment decisions from an agency-wide perspective.  Currently, because NASA does not consider program level requirements  when planning agency wide commitments for space communications,  many of these program requirements, such as infrastructure needs, are not  being addressed, which means they will worsen and inhibit the agency’s  ability to support future space exploration initiatives. Also, since space  communications programs have the ability to direct resources to  investments, investments made may not support agency wide  requirements conducive to a broader and possibly more efficient space  communications capability for the agency. As NASA begins to commit  more resources to deep space exploration in the future, the agency must  ensure that it properly addresses the communications needs of all of its  missions and makes investments from that viewpoint. NASA has the  opportunity to address this issue through a newly created task group  charged with analyzing how this can best be achieved.
section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: To better position the Deep Space Network to meet existing workload  challenges and prepare the network for future deep space  communications responsibilities, we recommend that the NASA  Administrator direct DSN to (1) identify total program requirements for  deep space communications capabilities for the near and long term, in  terms better defined than the single coverage commitment of 95 percent,  (2) determine the extent to which the program’s current capabilities can  support those identified requirements and (3) develop a plan to address  any gap between those capabilities and requirements and identify the  estimated costs of any enhancements needed.
As NASA’s task group on space communications considers how program  requirements can be better integrated into overall agency goals for space  communications capabilities, we recommend that the NASA Administrator  direct the group to consider the following in carrying out its task:   (1) identify what priority program-level requirements have in agency-level  decisions affecting space communications, (2) determine how program- level requirements for space communications programs can be identified  and communicated to agency-level decision makers, and (3) establish how  the agency can identify program-level investments needed to address  program requirements that support agency wide goals for space  communications and how to coordinate those investments to avoid  duplication and additional costs. While considering these  recommendations and the task at hand, the group should also consider the  importance of having shared knowledge and communication about these  issues openly with all entities involved.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: NASA concurred with our recommendations.  In commenting on the draft  of our report, NASA pointed out that it already had a plan in place that  addresses our first set of recommendations, namely the need for the  agency to identify all DSN requirements for the near and long-term, how it  will meet those requirements, and identify costs associated with meeting  those requirements.  While we recognize that NASA has a DSN Roadmap,  the agency still lacks a detailed strategy for addressing DSN needs for the  future that includes all program requirements, i.e. deferred maintenance,  in addition to the already projected mission needs.  Furthermore, the DSN  Roadmap does not include estimation of costs and does not address the  impact of unmet needs on its ability to meet mission requirements.
NASA also commented that the DSN has not been responsible for the loss  of missions.  Our report does not state that missions were lost because of  the DSN.  However, NASA officials provided GAO evidence that mission  science had been lost as a result of disruptions in the operation of DSN,  and that point is characterized in the report.
As agreed with your offices, unless you announce its contents earlier, we  will not distribute this report further until 30 days from its date.  At that  time, we will send copies to the NASA Administrator and interested  congressional committees.  We will make copies available to others upon  request.  In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO  website at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please  contact me at (202) 512-4841 or lia@gao.gov.  Contact points for our  Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the  last page of this report.  Key contributors to this report are acknowledged  in appendix III.
section_title: Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
paragraphs: To identify the challenges facing NASA’s Deep Space Network program in  meeting its current and planned space communications workload, we  performed the following:    We obtained and analyzed NASA documents and briefing slides related  to the operation and capabilities of the Deep Space Network, including  budget submissions and funding breakouts, workforce projections,  missions lists, fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005 Program Operating  Plans, the DSN Strategic Roadmap, mission agreements, the  memorandums of agreement with the host countries of the foreign DSN  sites, a 2004 NASA-wide facilities condition assessment, deferred  maintenance information and work breakdown system data, risk  assessments for various aspects of the network, return on investment  analyses for various technology upgrades and system performance and  reliability data, including records of downtimes.
We reviewed the NASA Vision for Exploration roadmaps and the  National Research Council reports on those roadmaps, the Vision for  Exploration Architecture report, and NASA Strategic Plan for 2005 and  Beyond for information about the role of DSN in the Vision. We also  reviewed previous GAO reports on infrastructure investment,  technology development and deferred maintenance.
We interviewed NASA mission officials to receive their feedback on the  performance of DSN, including performance shortfalls, in meeting their  needs and collected information related to those specific missions. We  also discussed the nature of challenges experienced by the program  through interviews with NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory officials  and DSN contractor personnel and received written and oral responses  from all.
To determine the extent NASA is integrating DSN into its space  communications plans for the future, we performed the following:    We collected and analyzed information related to space  communications architecture management at NASA, including the  NASA 4.0 Communication and Navigation Capability Roadmap, space  communication architecture plans, descriptions of the various space  communications assets intended to play a role in the future  architecture, Memorandum of Agreement for the Management of  NASA’s Space Communications Networks, and a description of the  history of space communications management at NASA.
We held discussions with NASA space communications officials about  future space communications architecture requirements, what assets  the architecture will include, and how its development is being  managed by the Space Communication Coordination and Integration  Board (SCCIB) and Space Communications Architecture Working  Group (SCAWG). We reviewed the charter of the SCAWG. We also  discussed the budget development and execution process for DSN at  the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) level, and how that impacts  integration of the DSN into the overall agency space communications  architecture.
We met with NASA’s Space Communications Organization Study  Group, which was established during the course of our review, to  discuss its task of identifying options for the management of space  communications for the future of NASA space exploration. We also  reviewed the Terms of Reference (TOR) for this group to better  understand its goals and time frames.
To accomplish our work, we visited and interviewed officials responsible  for DSN operations at NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.; the Jet  Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.; and ITT Industries contractor  officials at their offices in Monrovia, Calif., and at the DSN site complex in  Goldstone, Calif. At NASA Headquarters, we met with officials from the  Science Mission Directorate, including lead representatives from the Deep  Space Network program, the Exploration Missions Directorate and the  Space Operations Mission Directorate, including the Space  Communications Architecture Working Group. We also met with DSN  mission officials from the Mars Rovers, Deep Impact, Cassini-Huygens,  and Stardust programs.
We conducted our review from May 2005 to April 2006 in accordance with  generally accepted government auditing standards.
section_title: Appendix II: Agency Comments from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
section_title: Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgements
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Staff Acknowledgements
paragraphs: In addition to the individual named above, Brendan Culley, James  Morrison, Sylvia Schatz, Robert Swierczek, Trevor Thomson, Hai Tran and  Thomas Twambly made key contributions to this report.