Shown here is an aerial shot of the Ames Research Center.NASA.gov

The cover page of a report, obtained by FoxNews.com and purportedly presented to the FBI, alleging that confidential Defense Department missile secrets were leaked to foreign countries.FoxNews.com

The NASA office of the inspector general will audit NASAs Ames research facility in the wake of a FoxNews.com report on violations of International Trade in Arms Regulations (ITAR) laws at a storied California space-research facility.

Documents obtained by FoxNews.com last month detail a four-year FBI investigation into the transfer of classified weapons technology -- including rocket engine tech for missile defense systems -- to China and other countries from NASAs Ames Research Center. The documents also purport that an investigation into the security lapses that led to the event are being stonewalled.

- NASA inspector general Paul Martin

On March 14, NASA Inspector General Paul Martin wrote to Reps. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Chaka Fattah, D-Pa, to announce that he planned to open a broad investigation into these and other allegations, which Wolf has been urging NASA and the FBI to do.

I wanted to inform you that the OIG is opening a new audit that will more broadly examine NASAs controls over access by foreign nationals to its facilities, he wrote.

Last week, Wolf described a similar incident at Kennedy Space Center in Florida involving visits by Chinese officials, a charge NASA denied.

The news of the Inspector General's probe came a day after Martin testified before a congressional panel on the fiscal challenges NASA is facing, in part due to the sequester.

Because NASA received less than half its requested budget for commercial crew development last year, the Agency extended to 2017 the earliest it expects to obtain commercial crew transportation services to the [International Space Station] a date uncomfortably close to the Stations currently scheduled 2020 retirement, Martin wrote on the OIG site.

Continued here:

Audit to probe reports of leaked military secrets from NASA facilities