NASA Overview
The Mars Surveyor Program (MSP) was managed under the cheaper, better, faster paradigm at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA). This corporate culture created an environment which challenged NASA engineers to develop innovative, cost saving processes when designing and developing projects. This paradigm did have drawbacks though; putting too much emphasis on decreasing cost, and failing to integrate risk management in their projects. Ultimately, this mindset led to unacceptable risk levels, but the project selection and approval process attempted to mitigate these risks.
The project selection and approval process starts with formulation, which consists of the project initiation. The project can be initiated …show more content…
The board found that the root cause for the MCO project was an inconsistency of units between the all the sub teams on the project, which was a mission critical element. A mission critical element is defined as an aspect of the project that, if it were to fail, would disrupt the entire system and its objective. In the case of the MCO, the spacecraft engineer team and operation navigation team determined the changes in velocity within their models differed by a factor of 4.45. This is the exact conversion factor between pound-force and Newtons. Thus, the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics spacecraft operations team had used English units (lbf) instead of the specified and expected metric unit of Newtons. These values told the spacecraft to reach an initial periapsis of 57 kilometers, which was well under the threshold of a “safe” periapsis distance needed for a successful mission. Additionally, the MIB discovered eight contributing causes that ultimately lead to mission failure, …show more content…
Systems Engineering - At the start of a mission, clear requirements need to be defined and understood. Additionally, a full team should also be established at the beginning of a mission to communicate effectively with other subsystem teams. These personnel need to be engaged in the project at the start, and should conduct systems analysis regularly to ensure that the mission is on track and operating efficiently.
2. Project Management - Roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined for everyone working on the project, including a clear leader over the entire project. Additionally, the acceptable risk needs to be defined, quantified, and communicated to the entire organization. Lastly, there should be a training and mentoring program for inexperienced personnel by more experienced employees. Additionally, the lessons learned from each mission need to be documented for future
The Mars Surveyor Program (MSP) was managed under the cheaper, better, faster paradigm at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA). This corporate culture created an environment which challenged NASA engineers to develop innovative, cost saving processes when designing and developing projects. This paradigm did have drawbacks though; putting too much emphasis on decreasing cost, and failing to integrate risk management in their projects. Ultimately, this mindset led to unacceptable risk levels, but the project selection and approval process attempted to mitigate these risks.
The project selection and approval process starts with formulation, which consists of the project initiation. The project can be initiated …show more content…
The board found that the root cause for the MCO project was an inconsistency of units between the all the sub teams on the project, which was a mission critical element. A mission critical element is defined as an aspect of the project that, if it were to fail, would disrupt the entire system and its objective. In the case of the MCO, the spacecraft engineer team and operation navigation team determined the changes in velocity within their models differed by a factor of 4.45. This is the exact conversion factor between pound-force and Newtons. Thus, the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics spacecraft operations team had used English units (lbf) instead of the specified and expected metric unit of Newtons. These values told the spacecraft to reach an initial periapsis of 57 kilometers, which was well under the threshold of a “safe” periapsis distance needed for a successful mission. Additionally, the MIB discovered eight contributing causes that ultimately lead to mission failure, …show more content…
Systems Engineering - At the start of a mission, clear requirements need to be defined and understood. Additionally, a full team should also be established at the beginning of a mission to communicate effectively with other subsystem teams. These personnel need to be engaged in the project at the start, and should conduct systems analysis regularly to ensure that the mission is on track and operating efficiently.
2. Project Management - Roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined for everyone working on the project, including a clear leader over the entire project. Additionally, the acceptable risk needs to be defined, quantified, and communicated to the entire organization. Lastly, there should be a training and mentoring program for inexperienced personnel by more experienced employees. Additionally, the lessons learned from each mission need to be documented for future