ALBERT

Description: The EOS Space Measurement System (SMS) is intended to provide global earth science data from a low-altitude orbit on a long-term, sustained basis. The SMS consists of a series of small and intermediate spacecraft carrying a diverse set of scientific instruments. The instruments include optical, IR, and microwave sensors that provide detailed imagtes of the earth's surface; tropospheric and stratospheric sounders that provide vertical profiles of parameters such as temperature, trace gas concentration, and humdity; and accurate positioning instruments.

Description: NASA is formulating a program that will encompass many scientific disciplines and involve a large share of the international scientific community in the study of planet earth. The mission is planned for the 1990s and will involve at least four spacecraft: two provided by the NASA and one each provided by European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan. The NASA platforms will utilize elements of the Space Station Freedom program to provide the basic spacecraft engineering subsystems. These subsystems are intended to serve as the basis for future earth orbiting United States spacecraft.

Description: NASA, as an organization, takes risk management (RM) seriously, and for most projects, the risk management process is exemplar. There can be challenges, though, with defining RM processes. For example, many different risk analysis methodologies are available, they can be applied with varying degrees of rigor, and they can have different value depending on how projects use them. In particular, risk analysis methodologies vary considerably in the level of quantitative detail, with more probabilistic techniques encouraged in some situations. We discussed these processes and methodologies with ten project managers (PM) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Our intent was not to prove with some level of statistical significance that some are more helpful than others, but rather to obtain a general understanding of how projects are identifying, and thinking, about risks. This paper describes some of the available risk processes and methodologies, and provides some insights about the benefits that can gained from their use. We provide an in-depth discussion of one quantitative methodology, Probabilistic Risk Assessments (PRAs), and conclude with a few insights from observed best practices.

Description: The NASA risk classification system is meant to uide space mission development from formulation through completion of implementation. It is also meant to be the basis on which program and project managers develop and implement appropriate mission assurance and risk management strategies for the mission. In order to be useful, the risk classification system needs to provide consistent and reproducible classification results so that missions may be designed with the appropriate components, subsystems, and testing philosophy, all of which impacts mission schedule and cost. In a cost-constrained environment, a clear, robust, and reproducible approach to mission implementation becomes more critical than ever before. Once a project's risk classification level is established, the managers can define the appropriate management controls, systems engineering processes, mission assurance requirements, safety, and testing for that mission. The current NASA mission classification system will be reviewed before a new system is proposed.NASA manages space flight missions according to a four-tiered classification which assumes increasing levels of risk. We argue that risk does not change between classes. What changes are the means available to reduce risk. In performance-driven missions, the project will spend money in order to maintain performance without reducing margins. In cost-constrained missions, performance will be reduced in order to stay within budget or to maintain schedule: measurement requirements may be traded, design life may be reduced, or both. We then propose a new approach to the classification of NASA space flight missions, based on an assessment of how flexible the requirements, how exquisite the measurements, how long the lifetime, and how rigid the budget.Our proposed approach makes possible a clearer differentiation between classification levels and more effective guidance to program and project managers.