Washington, D.C. ? NASA can land a spacecraft on a peanut-shaped asteroid 150 million miles away, but it doesn’t come close to hitting the budget target for building its spacecraft, according to congressional auditors.

This week auditors found that on nine projects alone NASA is nearly $1.1 billion over cost estimates that were set in the last couple of years.

Congress’ financial watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, reviewed NASA’s newest big-money projects and found most were either over budget, late or both. That doesn’t include two of NASA’s largest spending projects whose costs have wildly fluctuated and still aren’t firm — replacements for the space shuttle fleet and Hubble Space Telescope.

Historically, overruns have caused NASA to run low on money, forcing it to shelve or delay other projects. Often, the agency just asks taxpayers for more money. In fact, NASA got $1 billion from the new stimulus package.