NASA operates one of the most complex public web ecosystems in government. With over a thousand public websites spanning missions, research initiatives, standards bodies, and organizational units, web publishing had become highly fragmented. Each site often ran on its own infrastructure, domain, and technology stack, resulting in inconsistent user experiences, duplicated effort, and rising operational costs.

Many site owners relied on a legacy Drupal 7 based solution that required specialized expertise and lengthy provisioning processes. Standing up a new site could take weeks or months, creating friction for teams that needed to publish time sensitive information or launch new initiatives quickly. Design updates and content changes were similarly constrained, limiting flexibility for non-technical users.

At the same time, NASA needed to maintain:

• Organizational autonomy across diverse stakeholders
• Shared branding elements defined by the NASA Office of Communications
• Reliable performance across devices
• A secure, agency-managed hosting environment

The agency required a modern publishing platform that could scale horizontally, reduce time-to-launch, and empower content creators, without introducing vendor lock-in or sacrificing governance.

Our Approach

Lone Rock Point approached the engagement with a focus on scalability, usability, and long-term maintainability. Rather than delivering a one-off website, the goal was to create a reusable publishing platform capable of supporting hundreds of sites and stakeholders.

Key principles guided the approach:

Open Source at the Core

NASA Sitebuilder was built on WordPress, leveraging its mature ecosystem, extensibility, and proven scalability. Open-source licensing ensured transparency, flexibility, and long-term sustainability.

Platform, Not Pages

Instead of treating each site as a standalone project, Lone Rock Point designed a WordPress Multisite architecture that allowed users to instantly create new websites from predefined templates. This dramatically reduced setup time while preserving consistency where required.

User-Centered Content Creation

After evaluating multiple page builder solutions, Lone Rock Point selected Beaver Builder for its performance characteristics and clean content model. Because Beaver Builder does not rely on shortcodes, content remains readable and portable even if the builder is disabled, reducing long-term risk.

Secure, Agency-Managed Infrastructure

NASA Sitebuilder was deployed within a NASA-managed Amazon Web Services environment, aligning with internal operational and security requirements while supporting high availability and performance.

The Solution

NASA Sitebuilder delivers a modern, SaaS-like publishing experience within an on-premise government environment. The platform includes:

• Self-service site creation using predefined templates
• Reusable layouts and components aligned with NASA branding guidelines
• Responsive publishing for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices
• Streamlined workflows for content creation and publishing
• Multisite governance that balances autonomy and centralized oversight

The solution enables individual teams to control their own sites—look, feel, and content—while still adhering to shared design standards such as typography and color palettes defined by the NASA Office of Communications.

New organizational stakeholders can launch fully functional websites from scratch, lowering the barrier to entry for publishing across the agency.

User satisfaction skyrockets

Site owners and content managers underwent significant change moving from a Drupal 7 based solution into a WordPress solution using Beaver Builder. The change was worth it. Users liked having integrated design tools the Beaver Builder solution provided. Users could also get started faster. Instead of waiting weeks/months to get set up with a new site,  It took days.

Cost savings

Using NASA Sitebuilder, we were able to implement a tool for NASA that provided high functional value while decreasing the total cost operation and ownership by well over 100%.