Nasa's Spaceflight Chief Resigns on Eve of Historic Flight

[bmbmd 1030]

https://www.space.com/nasa-human-spaceflight-chief-doug-loverro-resigns.html?utm_source=notification

 

Doug Loverro, NASA's chief of human spaceflight, resigned from his post Monday (May 18) after less than a year on the job, the agency announced today (May 19). 

Loverro's resignation as Associate Administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate is a stunning development, as the agency counts down to the first orbital crew launch from U.S. soil in nearly a decade, which will take place on May 27. 

 

What could go wrong?

[Updawg 2296]

Sounds like procurement issues. But is strange timing.

[RPM 26422]

Paging @RamjetFDO to the white courtesy phone.

[Neonmoon 38130]

It’s Aliens 

[RamjetFDO 10600]

Yeah... Some shady shit going on. I'm trying to get details, but initially it looks like something related to the recent lunar lander contact awards.

Boeing was left out, and Boeing doesn't like being left out.

It smells like a political hit job, but again... Too early to say for sure.

Stand by.

[Surly Bevo 25444]

I'm sure everything Boeing has to do with this is completely on the up and up. Impeccable track record of late.

[NeverMarryAStripper 22006]

Boeing was left out, and Boeing doesn't like being left out.

He probably thought it was a bad idea for the lander software to take over and crash itself into the moon

[thunderlounge 8026]

Are they not calling it the Lunar Lander MAX anymore?

[Guest Lobo]

17 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

He probably thought it was a bad idea for the lander software to take over and crash itself into the moon

"Elaine, we're gonna have to blow the computer."

"You mean...Blow Roc?"  

[RamjetFDO 10600]

Lot of good "inside baseball" in this Ars Technica article.

But the thing that stands out the most is how little is really known yet - kudos to them for admitting that. 

I'm still standing by for any real details, although ... I'm wondering if this turns out to be the most boring and bureaucratic reason ever, as opposed to somebody caught him with an underaged intern.

[atomheartbevo 89995]

20 hours ago, RamjetFDO said:

Yeah... Some shady shit going on. I'm trying to get details, but initially it looks like something related to the recent lunar lander contact awards.

Boeing was left out, and Boeing doesn't like being left out.

It smells like a political hit job, but again... Too early to say for sure.

Stand by.

That little mishap back in December....

Quote

“The mission didn’t go as planned because we made a mistake,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president for space and launch at Boeing Defense and Space. The timer issue, he said, caused the spacecraft to think it was in a different phase of the mission immediately after separation from its Atlas 5 launch vehicle.

Didn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence, especially since Boeing potentially took a $400 million hit.  That probably ate into some Boeing exec's bonuses.

[Pato del Muerto 52757]

20 hours ago, RamjetFDO said:

Yeah... Some shady shit going on. I'm trying to get details, but initially it looks like something related to the recent lunar lander contact awards.

Boeing was left out, and Boeing doesn't like being left out.

It smells like a political hit job, but again... Too early to say for sure.

Stand by.

[Bobby_Batronic 1994]

19 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

He probably thought it was a bad idea for the lander software to take over and crash itself into the moon

Hell, the last time it threw its hands up in the air (space) and gave up. I’d give it credit for having some initiative. 

[UTexasFight 9589]

The de­ci­sion, ac­cord­ing to the per­son fa­mil­iar with the de­tails, was prompted by an in­ter­nal agency in­quiry into Mr. Lover­ro’s al­leged in­volve­ment in shar­ing data among cer­tain com­pa­nies vy­ing for lu­nar-lan­der con­tracts as part of the moon pro­gram, known as Artemis.

....

Three weeks ago, NASA awarded lu­nar-lan­der con­tracts to­tal­ing nearly $1 bil­lion to three sep­a­rate teams led by Elon Musk’s Space Ex­plo­ration Tech­nolo­gies Corp., the Dy­net­ics unit of long­time agency con­trac­tor Lei­dos Hold­ings Inc. and Blue Ori­gin LLC, founded and run by Ama­zon.­com Inc. chair­man, Jeff Be­zos.
....

Mr. Loverro, ac­cord­ing to the per­son fa­mil­iar with the de­tails of his de­par­ture, was un­der scru­tiny for al­legedly shar­ing cer­tain com­pany data with one or more of the bid­ding teams, which ini­tially in­cluded Boe­ing Co., one of NASA’s most prom­inent con­trac­tors since the dawn of the Space Age. Boe­ing was elim­i­nated from the com­pe­ti-tion be­fore specifics of the three awards were de­cided. A Boe­ing spokesman de­clined to com­ment.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/senior-nasa-official-resigns-amid-probe-into-suspect-contracting-actions-11590012946?mod=mhp

[MrBig 5496]

For some reason I thought of this 

[RamjetFDO 10600]

There's a lot of frustration and shoulder-shrugging going on in my circle of contacts with the lack of information.  It's a fairly consistent thought, though, that Loverro made a pretty heavy-handed decision in the procurement process, perhaps even sharing some proprietary or at least advantageous information that maybe shouldn't have been shared with Boeing's competitors that allowed them to structure their responses to the Lunar Lander proposal.  And, when Boeing wasn't selected, they weren't happy about that at all.

So - that is looking more likely with each passing day of "no other news".  If it were something really juicy or really obnoxious, it would probably have leaked by now.

So - "boring" reason is leading the pack.

More if I hear anything.

[XYZ 2154]

So how does it work, Boeing calls important people in DC, important people in DC call for this guy’s head on a platter?

[NeverMarryAStripper 22006]

Isn't that the way our government works on everything

[RamjetFDO 10600]

28 minutes ago, XYZ said:

So how does it work, Boeing calls important people in DC, important people in DC call for this guy’s head on a platter?

[Vito Andolini 9135]

Boeing’s lobbyist doesn’t screw around.

[Pato del Muerto 52757]

4 hours ago, RamjetFDO said:

There's a lot of frustration and shoulder-shrugging going on in my circle of contacts with the lack of information.  It's a fairly consistent thought, though, that Loverro made a pretty heavy-handed decision in the procurement process, perhaps even sharing some proprietary or at least advantageous information that maybe shouldn't have been shared with Boeing's competitors that allowed them to structure their responses to the Lunar Lander proposal.  And, when Boeing wasn't selected, they weren't happy about that at all.

So - that is looking more likely with each passing day of "no other news".  If it were something really juicy or really obnoxious, it would probably have leaked by now.

So - "boring" reason is leading the pack.

More if I hear anything.

So is he fired for leaking to some bidders, or because Boeing didn’t like that he leaked to bidders that weren’t Boeing?

[RamjetFDO 10600]

2 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

So is he fired for leaking to some bidders, or because Boeing didn’t like that he leaked to bidders that weren’t Boeing?

Don't know for sure ... but the stink of it is the latter.

[El Diablo 4232]

5 hours ago, RamjetFDO said:

Don't know for sure ... but the stink of it is the latter.

Is this the same guy you thought was an odd fit when he got the job? Seems like there was a major hire a while back that you questioned.

[UTexasFight 9589]

Criminal probe:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-probes-former-nasa-officials-contacts-with-boeing-executive-on-lunar-contracts-11597433060?st=3kdhahz8ztdp6fs&reflink=article_copyURL_share

U.S. Criminal Probe Looks at Former NASA Official’s Contacts With Boeing Executive

Investigation focuses on procurement-related information then-senior official shared with Boeing about lunar-lander competition

Fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors have opened a crim­i­nal probe into whether a se­nior NASA of­fi­cial im­prop­erly told a high-rank­ing Boe­ing Co. ex­ec­u­tive about the sta­tus of a lu­nar-lan­der con­tract, spurring the com­pany to re­vise its bid, ac­cord­ing to peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.
 

The grand-jury in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which hasn’t been pre­vi­ously re­ported, is be­ing led by the U.S. at­tor­ney’s of­fice for the Dis­trict of Co­lumbia and is fo­cused on com­mu­ni­ca­tion that oc­curred early this year out­side es­tab­lished con­tract­ing chan­nels, these peo­ple said. Pros­e­cu­tors, they said, are look­ing into con­tacts be­tween Doug Loverro, be­fore he re­signed as head of NASA’s hu­man-ex­plo-ration pro­grams in May, and Jim Chilton, se­nior vice pres­i­dent of Boe­ing’s space and launch di­vi­sion.

Mr. Loverro, who wasn’t part of NASA’s of­fi­cial con­tract­ing staff, in­formed Mr. Chilton that the Chicago aero­space gi­ant was about to be elim­i­nated from the com­pe­ti-tion based on cost and tech­ni­cal eval­u­a­tions, ac­cord­ing to some of the peo­ple. Within days, Boe­ing sub­mit­ted a re­vised pro­posal, they said. The Na­tional Aero­nau­tics and Space Ad­min­is­tra­tion for­mally de­ter­mined the bid changes came too late to be con­sid­ered, and three other com­pa­nies won con­tracts in April to­tal­ing nearly $1 bil­lion.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is in the early stages, ac­cord­ing to the peo­ple fa­mil­iar with it, and it isn’t known whether the probe will re­sult in a crim­i­nal case. Re­gard­less of how it ends, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion height­ens scru­tiny of Mr. Lover­ro’s con­duct and raises new ques­tions about Boe­ing’s de­ci­sion-mak­ing and in­ter­nal con­tract­ing safe­guards. Sev­eral mid-level Boe­ing of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing an at­tor­ney, were pushed out of the com­pany as a re­sult of the con­tro­versy, peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the per­son­nel changes said.
 

The com­pany has taken steps to im­prove com­pli­ance train­ing fol­low­ing the episode, said a per­son briefed on Boe­ing’s in­ter­nal re­sponse.

Boe­ing, which faces a sep­a­rate crim­i­nal probe into its de­vel­op-ment of the 737 MAX pas­sen­ger jet, de­clined to com­ment on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion or on be­half of Mr. Chilton. A NASA spokesman said it is “in­ap­pro­pri­ate to dis­cuss per­son­nel ac­tions” but added, “We are con­fi­dent in our pro­cure­ment process.” A spokes­woman for the U.S. at­tor­ney’s of­fice didn’t re­spond to re­quests for com­ment. Mr. Lover­ro’s lawyers couldn’t be reached for com­ment.

Mr. Loverro has told in­ves­ti­ga­tors he was try­ing to help the lu­nar-lan­der pro­gram and tax­pay­ers rather than pur­su­ing any­thing ill-in­tended, ac­cord­ing to some of the peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the in­ves­ti­ga-tion, by re­duc­ing the like­li­hood that the bid­ding process would be slowed down by po­ten­tial chal-lenges or ap­peals to the out­come.
 

Mr. Lover­ro’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Boe­ing, and the com­pa­ny’s ac­tions fol­low­ing those com­mu­ni-ca­tions, prompted com­plaints within parts of NASA, the peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the in­quiry said. The com­plaints sparked a pre­vi­ously re­ported probe by the agency’s in­spec­tor gen­eral into whether Boe­ing gained un­usual in­sight or any ad­van­tage in the com­pe­ti­tion. Weeks af­ter the awards were an­nounced, Mr. Loverro stepped down as an as­sociate ad­min­is­tra-tor un­der pres­sure from NASA’s lead­er­ship.

In a farewell mes­sage to staff sent on May 19, Mr. Loverro sug­gested he had over­stepped his au­thor­ity or oth­er­wise might have run afoul of con­tract­ing rules. He wrote that “risk-tak­ing is part of the job de­scrip­tion” of some­one in his role. With­out elab­o­rat­ing, the mes­sage said, “I took such a risk ear­lier in the year be­cause I judged it nec­es­sary to ful­fill our mis­sion.”

Af­ter Mr. Loverro left NASA, some of these peo­ple said, pros­e­cu­tors opened their probe into whether pro­cure­ment in­tegrity laws were vi­o­lated, re­quest­ing writ­ten state­ments and is­su­ing at least one sub­poena. The in­spec­tor gen­er­al’s civil in­quiry has been put on hold pend­ing res­o­lu­tion of the crim­i­nal probe, ac­cord­ing to peo­ple fa­mil­iar with both in­quiries. A spokes-woman for the in­spec­tor gen­eral de­clined com­ment.
 

In his state­ments to NASA and Jus­tice De­part­ment in­ves­ti­ga­tors, these peo­ple said, Mr. Loverro in­di­cated his goal was to pre­vent dis­rup­tions to NASA’s lan­der plans. Pros­e­cu­tors also are look­ing at his con­tact with an­other bid­der, these peo­ple said, with­out iden­ti­fy­ing that party.

Both of the con­tacts with bid­ders might have breached es­tab­lished NASA pro­ce­dures de­signed to in­su­late con­tract­ing de­ci­sions from im­proper in­flu­ence, ac­cord-ing to these peo­ple, and could have re­flected ef­forts by a new­comer to NASA’s lead­er­ship ranks to rev up com­pe­ti­tion. Mr. Loverro is a for­mer se­nior Pen­tagon space of­fi­cial who played an im­por­tant role in es­tab­lish­ing the goals and broad de­sign of NASA’s hu­man-lan­der pro­gram af­ter com­ing to the agency in De­cem­ber. He didn’t make the fi­nal con­tract­ing de­ci­sions.
 

At the end of April, NASA chose the three cor­po­rate teams to de­velop lan­ders in­tended to take as­tro-nauts to the moon for the first time in nearly half a cen­tury, re­ly­ing on a blend of startup and es­tab­lished con­trac­tors to lead the way with dra­mat­i­cally dif­fer­ent tech­ni­cal so­lu­tions. To­tal­ing $967 mil­lion, the con­tracts are in­tended to be a down pay­ment for bil­lions of ad­di­tional tax dol­lars NASA plans to spend on lan­der pro­to­types and test­ing. There is no in­di­ca­tion the win­ners—Space Ex­plo­ration Tech­nolo­gies Corp., Blue Ori­gin Fed­er­a­tion LLC and Lei­dos Hold­ings Inc.’s Dy­net­ics unit—are part of the Jus­tice De­part­ment probe.

Those three com­pa­nies ei­ther de­clined to com­ment or couldn’t be reached.
 

For Boe­ing, how­ever, the out­come was widely seen as a blow. In­dus­try of­fi­cials ex­pressed sur­prise the com­pany wasn’t cho­sen de­spite its for­midable role in hu­man space ex­plo­ration stretch­ing back some five decades.

In his farewell mes­sage, Mr. Loverro wrote that his exit from NASA had “noth­ing to do with your per­for­mance as an or­ga­ni­za­tion nor with the plans we have placed in mo­tion” to land as­tro­nauts on the moon by 2024, adding, “My leav­ing is be­cause of my per­sonal ac­tions.”
 

Mr. Lover­ro’s res­ig­na­tion at­tracted wide­spread at­ten­tion partly be­cause it was so abrupt—he sub­mit­ted his res­ig­na­tion the day be­fore he sent his go­ing-away mes­sage—and partly be­cause it came less than two weeks be­fore SpaceX’s flight of the first com­mer-cially de­vel­oped cap­sule to carry hu­mans to the In­ternational Space Sta­tion. The Wall Street Jour­nal ini­tially re­ported the in­spec­tor gen­er­al’s in­quiry, and the Wash­ing-ton Post later iden­ti­fied Mr. Chilton as Mr. Lover­ro’s con­tact at Boe­ing.

In the 737 MAX in­ves­ti­ga­tion, fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors at Jus­tice De­part­ment head­quar­ters have been gath­er­ing ev­i­dence for nearly two years. In re­cent months they have been seek­ing to build a case against a for­mer Boe­ing pi­lot who over­saw reg­u­la­tory ap­provals for MAX man­u­als and pi­lot train­ing be­fore he left the com­pany, the Jour­nal has re­ported.

Two of the air­craft crashed within five months, killing a to­tal of 346 peo­ple and spark­ing var­i­ous in­ves­ti­ga­tions into Boe­ing’s fail­ures to promptly and fully pro­vide de­sign de­tails to reg­u­la-tors dur­ing the plane’s ini­tial cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Boe­ing has said it met all reg­u­la­tory re­quire­ments in de­sign­ing the MAX and is work­ing to ob­tain ap­proval of re­vi­sions and fixes to the plane’s de­sign. The for­mer Boe­ing pi­lot’s lawyer has said his client didn’t do any­thing to un­der­mine safety or mis­lead reg­u­la­tors.
 

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com, Andrew Tangel at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com and Aruna Viswanatha at Aruna.Viswanatha@wsj.com  

 

Edited August 15, 2020 by UTexasFight