NASA to Halt $2 Bln Satellite Services Project

NASA announced on Friday that it will discontinue a project worth over $2 billion aimed at testing satellite services such as in-space refueling due to escalating costs and schedule delays.

In October, NASA reported that the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 (OSAM-1) project continued to face cost overruns, expected to exceed its set value of $2.05 billion, along with its scheduled launch in December 2026.

NASA cited ongoing technical challenges, cost and schedule issues, and the broader community's shift away from refueling unprepared spacecraft, resulting in the absence of a committed partner as reasons for the project's termination on Friday, as per Reuters.

The agency had previously pointed out in October that one of the main reasons for the project's increasing costs and timeline delays was the "poor performance" of Maxar Technologies.

NASA contracted Maxar in 2019 to assist in constructing its Gateway platform in lunar orbit, a critical outpost for America's first mission to send astronauts to the moon since the Apollo era.