- The Government Accountability Office has called on NASA to take action on recommended operational changes issued in 2025
- The GAO raised its concerns on the space agency’s cost monitoring, cyber management and government contracting process
- The government watchdog followed up on its report through a letter to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman
The Government Accountability Office on Wednesday issued a new report expanding its list of priority recommendations for NASA after the space agency made no progress on the three items GAO flagged in 2025.
The GAO reiterated the areas of concern that required NASA’s action: monitoring program costs, managing cybersecurity risks and using government contracting metrics.
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How Has the GAO Followed Up With NASA on the Recommendations?
In a letter to NASA administrator and 2026 Wash100 Award winner Jared Isaacman, the government watchdog said that the space agency still had 46 recommendations awaiting action as of July 2026, four of which carry priority status. None of those priority items have been addressed since GAO’s letter to NASA in August of 2025.
On the cost front, GAO wants NASA to improve visibility into spending tied to the Artemis program and related missions. On cybersecurity, the agency is being urged to conduct an enterprise-wide risk assessment so it can pinpoint and address its most significant cyber threats. And on contracting, GAO says better use of federal metrics would give NASA leadership more informed insight for procurement decisions, with the potential to save the agency millions of dollars.
GAO noted that acting on the outstanding priority recommendations could meaningfully strengthen how the agency operates.
What Is the Significance of the Priority Open Recommendations?
Priority recommendations are those GAO believes deserve immediate attention from agency leadership because acting on them could yield significant savings, strengthen decision-making at the congressional or executive level, curb waste and mismanagement, or help resolve a designated high-risk or duplication concern. GAO has used this mechanism since 2015, sending direct notice to agency heads to underscore the recommendations’ importance.
According to a January 2026 report, GAO found that agencies had put into practice 77 percent of the recommendations it issued five years earlier, measured across the federal government as a whole. NASA’s own follow-through rate came in slightly lower, at 72 percent.
