Seems like at least 2 people on this reply thread didn't read the article. It could be 3, since OP wrote "an audit", if OP did the audit mentioned in the article they would've written "the audit".
I brought it up because it more closely fit GP's "2012" timeline and shows that even before the audit in the article, there was good reason to doubt the future of the mission.
Please also remember the HN commenting guidelines ("Please don't comment on whether someone read an article."):