Despite the fact that in recent years NASA is relying on private equity companies to carry out different missions of all kinds, from routine for the agency to cataloged as'discounts', see for example how SpaceX is in charge of supplying the International Space Station or, in a short time, even in charge of taking and bringing the astronauts from it, the truth is that in parallel they also work on their own internal projects related to space exploration and, above all, with being the first to reach Mars using their own technologies.
We have an example of what I am saying in that project in which the famous United States Space Agency has been working for many years and for which, predictably this is the date of its launch, in 2019 we will know what NASA has baptized as Space launch system, a new and gigantic rocket that, although it has had some rather striking delay due to the numerous technical problems that the agency's engineers have faced, a certain problem may still come to light that would be closely linked to this first release to the point where it could be delayed, again.
The platform from which the Space Launch System will be launched is beginning to tilt
Specifying this issue a little more, it has just been revealed that not only NASA has quite serious problems with the development and launch of the Space Launch System, but, if this was not something really bad, they have just spent nothing less than 1.000 million in the development and construction of a gigantic mobile platform to launch this rocket, the same platform that, during its construction, is starting to lean.
According to the latest report published by NASA itself, it appears that the expensive platform is leaning to one side, something that is causing its structure to be bending. At the moment the only official data published by NASA itself speaks of this incline is not so drastic that the platform needs repairs or corrective modifications although, it is curious that, after indicating this, it is also confirmed that, if needed, NASA is already studying a contingency plan to carry them out.
Although the inclination does not imply repairs or corrections, the truth is that NASA is already working on a contingency plan
Apparently, as has been confirmed on the odd website, although, of course, NASA has not wanted to enter 'to the rag', the truth is that this platform was originally designed to be used by the new Ares rockets designed by NASA. Curiously and as you are sure you know, this generation of rockets was canceled since the agency decided to start working on the design of the Space Launch System, this was the main reason that agency managers made the decision that, the best in this case , went through adapt this platform to be used by the new rocket.
Unfortunately and as usually happens with this class of projects where you work with some specifications and then everything is valid to adapt to very different ones, thinking that it is the best and above all the most economical, the cost has literally skyrocketed. To give us an idea, the initial cost of the platform was 234 million, an expense that has increased to 912 million causing, in its construction, a total of 8 years has been invested. As a detail, apparently and if the problems of the platform continue to worsen, in addition to the enormous expense, the platform can only be used for the first launch of the Space Launch System, then they will have to build a completely new one to be used in subsequent launches.