NASA OIG Report: NASA’s Management Of The Dragonfly Project

Dragonfly, a rotorcraft lander that will fly like a large drone, is designed to gather samples from Saturn’s moon Titan, characterize Titan’s habitability, and look for precursors of the origin of life. However, the project has undergone multiple replans impacting cost and schedule, resulting in a life-cycle cost increase of nearly $1 billion and over 2 years of delays.

Full report

WHY WE PERFORMED THIS AUDIT

In June 2019, NASA selected Dragonfly as the Agency’s next mission under its New Frontiers Program, which seeks to answer questions about the solar system. Dragonfly, a rotorcraft lander with eight rotors that will fly like a large drone, is designed to gather sample materials from Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and determine surface composition in different geologic settings. The rotorcraft will be powered by a radioisotope power system and fly to dozens of locations to characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment, investigate how far prebiotic chemistry has progressed, and look for prebiotic chemical processes—precursors of the origin of life.

Dragonfly is a Principal Investigator-led mission managed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Although at the time of selection, the mission was expected to launch in April 2026, in September 2020, NASA directed project officials to change Dragonfly’s launch readiness date to January 2027 due to the Agency’s inability to fully fund the project’s plan.

In January 2022, Dragonfly was approved to continue development with an updated estimated life-cycle cost range of $2.1 to $2.5 billion and expected launch date of June 2027. Then in March 2023, NASA directed project officials to initiate a replan due to funding constraints. The replan, which was completed in July 2023, included new cost, staffing, and schedule plans. As a result, the project estimated a new launch readiness date of July 2028 with an expected arrival at Titan in 2034. By the time NASA formally established the project’s cost and schedule baseline in April 2024, life-cycle costs had grown to $3.35 billion and the launch readiness date was delayed by over 2 years.

In this audit we examined NASA’s management of the Dragonfly project relative to cost, schedule, risk, and technical performance. Specifically, we assessed (1) whether the project had effective cost and schedule plans in place and if they were performing according to those plans and (2) how the cost of the Dragonfly mission impacts the future of other New Frontiers Program missions within the Planetary Science Division (PSD) portfolio.

Our assessment included a review of NASA and APL project documents, such as the Dragonfly project plan, international agreements, acquisition planning documentation, and monthly status reports. Additionally, we interviewed NASA officials from the Science Mission Directorate, PSD, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, the Radioisotope Power Systems Program Office, and APL project management officials.

WHAT WE FOUND

Dragonfly has experienced significant cost increases and schedule delays primarily due to decisions made by NASA management. Dragonfly was selected under a New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity with a $850 million cost cap on Principal Investigator-Managed Mission Costs, which primarily includes development costs but excludes launch vehicle and post-launch operations costs.

However, by April 2024, those costs had grown to $2.6 billion and the launch delayed by more than 2 years, from April 2026 to July 2028. The cost increase and schedule delay were largely the result of NASA directing APL to conduct four replans between June 2019 and July 2023 early in Dragonfly’s development. Justifications for these replans included the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues, changes to accommodate a heavy-lift launch vehicle, projected funding challenges, and inflation.

We also found that NASA allowed Dragonfly development to proceed under less than ideal circumstances. For example, while a NASA senior management review determined in November 2023 that Dragonfly had met the technical requirements to proceed to the next life-cycle phase of development, due to uncertainty in the fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget, management gave the project authority to begin the next phase’s work, not to exceed the limits of FY 2024 funds, but did not formally authorize the project to continue into the next phase.

Although this authority is atypical and had not previously been used by the Science Mission Directorate, the decision allowed the project to begin development work instead of delaying that work until the Agency completed the FY 2025 budget process. In our opinion, considering the multiple delays and corresponding cost increases the project had already experienced, we believe the reasoning behind NASA’s decision and limiting the project’s work to existing FY 2024 funds was sound.

Dragonfly was subsequently granted authority to formally proceed to the next phase in April 2024 with a cost baseline of $3.35 billion and a July 2028 launch readiness date. However, despite establishment of cost and schedule baselines, as of July 2025, the Dragonfly project plan (dated February 2023) had not been updated to reflect the changes.

In addition, NASA decided to allow Dragonfly to proceed into the next development phase with lower than optimum project cost reserves—known as Unallocated Future Expenses—during final design and fabrication development work. This limited the project’s ability to resolve unexpected technical problems and address risks. To address the shortfall, APL plans to re-phase work and delay payments to some of its contractors. The project also plans to delay development and testing activities, which can lead to late risk identification and more costly risk mitigations (in time and money) later in development.

Dragonfly’s total life-cycle cost is significantly more than other New Frontiers Program missions and will continue to absorb an increasing proportion of PSD’s total budget. While other New Frontiers missions had total life-cycle costs of approximately $1 billion, PSD budget limitations along with Dragonfly’s increased costs have delayed the release of the next New Frontiers Program Announcement of Opportunity. In addition, where other New Frontiers missions launched on a 5-year cadence, Dragonfly’s original launch date and schedule delays will result in at least a 12-year gap in New Frontiers mission launches.

Lastly, we have concerns about the likelihood of Dragonfly meeting its cost and schedule baseline. As indicated by APL’s Earned Value Management (EVM) System—a project management tool designed to objectively measure and assess a project’s cost and schedule performance—the project’s cost and schedule performance is poorer than planned. Further, NASA’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer identified potential issues with the accuracy and validity of APL’s EVM System and asked the Defense Contract Management Agency to perform an independent assessment of that system.

WHAT WE RECOMMENDED

To build upon the effectiveness of NASA project management, increase the likelihood of mission success within the established cost and schedule commitment, ensure programmatic balance in the future, and ensure compliance with NASA policy to accurately reflect cost and schedule baseline commitments, we recommended the Associate Administrator for Science Mission Directorate (1) document lessons learned from the decision to begin Phase C development work prior to establishing a baseline commitment, (2) update Dragonfly’s project plan to reflect baseline commitments, (3) maintain adequate levels of Unallocated Future Expenses to support the Dragonfly project through Phase D, (4) ensure APL timely implements any recommendations needed to bring the EVM System into compliance, and (5) ensure the science community is informed of updates to the expected scope and cadence for future New Frontiers missions.

We provided a draft of this report to NASA management who concurred with our recommendations and described planned actions to address them. We consider management’s comments responsive; therefore, the recommendations are resolved and will be closed upon completion and verification of the proposed corrective actions.

Full report

Astrobiology