Abstract
The Aerospace Corporation (Aerospace) conducts extensive space safety activities as a part of its overall mission assurance responsibilities. This paper spotlights safety insights gleaned by Aerospace from past space mishaps. It also explains how Aerospace conducts cross-program analysis, extracts lessons, codifies best practices, and shares its broad knowledge base across the space community.
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Notes
- 1.
The Orion mishap occurred because a technician set the rocket off during continuity test. The hand-held test meter contained a voltage-reduction module to reduce its output current to a trickle to prevent inadvertent ignition of the pyros, but someone left out the module during battery installation. Clearly, squibs should be designed to allow tests with “arming” and “firing” inhibits in place, via the pyrobox’s test ports, instead of directly across the bridgewire.
- 2.
MIL-HDBK-83578, Criteria for Explosive Systems and Devices Used on Space Vehicles, requires all ESD sensitive components to be shielded or otherwise protected from ESD, and stipulates the use of safe-arm device. Part 6 of ECSS-E-30, Pyrotechnics, has similar instructions.
- 3.
The thermal tape on the connector plug housing should leave enough clearance so the harness can disengage. Assembly instructions stated that the tape shall be applied within 0.5 inches of the mounting bracket flange (instead of, for example, “no closer than 0.5 inches and no farther than 1.0 inch”). Unaware that the parts had to unfasten and thinking that they should wrap the tapes as tightly as possible, the technicians applied the tapes so close to the flange that the separator jammed.
- 4.
The Mars Climate Orbiter’s ground control software reused a thruster model that contained a conversion factor to fit the vendor’s inputs (based on lb-force-sec) into the model (specified in Newton-sec). The factor was inadvertently deleted when the model was updated. The probe thus flew too close to Mars and burned up. The Mars Polar Lander had a requirement consisting of three subordinate requirements, two of which correctly flowed down to the software specification, but the third one was overlooked. The lander crashed as a result.
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Tosney, W.F., Cheng, P.G. (2015). Space Safety is no Accident how the Aerospace Corporation Promotes Space Safety. In: Sgobba, T., Rongier, I. (eds) Space Safety is No Accident. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15982-9_11
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