NASA Reconsiders DAWN Mission Cancellation

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Monday March 27, 2006 @09:45PM from the back-on-the-path dept.

amstrad writes "Last month, NASA decided to cancel the DAWN mission to Ceres and Vesta citing 'technical difficulties' and 'budget overrun'. Monday, NASA released a statement reinstating the mission." From the article: "The decision to cancel Dawn was made March 2, 2006, after about $257 million already had been spent. An additional expenditure of about $14 million would have been required to terminate the project. The reinstatement resulted from a review process that is part of new management procedures established by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin. The process is intended to help ensure open debate and thorough evaluation of major decisions regarding space exploration and agency operations."

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Termination fee by MyNameIsFred · 2006-03-27 22:27 · Score: 5, Informative

The article doesn't give details, but the statement "$257 million already had been spent. An additional expenditure of about $14 million would have been required to terminate the project. " probably does not mean they only needed to spend $14 million to complete the project. Most government contracts have a termination fee associated with it. If the government cancels the project early, the government pays the contractor to close up shop - dispose of unneeded material, severence pay for terminated workers, etc. etc.