Columbia and Challenger: organizational failure at NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)—as the global leader in all areas of spaceflight and space science—is a unique organization in terms of size, mission, constraints, complexity and motivations. NASA's flagship endeavor—human spaceflight—is extremely risky and one of the most complicated tasks undertaken by man. It is well accepted that the tragic destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger on 28 January 1986 was the result of organizational failure. The surprising disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia in February 2003—nearly 17 years to the day after Challenger—was a shocking reminder of how seemingly innocuous details play important roles in risky systems and organizations. NASA as an organization has changed considerably over the 42 years of its existence. If it is serious about minimizing failure and promoting its mission, perhaps the most intense period of organizational change lies in its immediate future. This paper outlines some of the critical features of NASA's organization and organizational change, namely path dependence and “normalization of deviance”. Subsequently, it reviews the rationale behind calling the Challenger tragedy an organizational failure. Finally, it argues that the recent Columbia accident displays characteristics of organizational failure and proposes recommendations for the future.     

Economics of telecommunications space segments

This paper proposes a complete model for assessing the economics of telecommunications satellite systems, accounting for spacecraft development and manufacturing, launch and operations in orbit. This allows to account for such parameters as the mass and lifetime of the satellites, the number and type of payloads, the number of satellites procured and launched, the spare policy, the launch vehicle, the insurances, the satellite average MTTF and the management of the space segment efforts.

The model is divided into four parts: the spacecraft mass model, the spacecraft procurement cost model, the MTTF model and the space segment cost-effectiveness model. It provides for the rapid solution of a number of problems within a wide range of parameters such as assessing the influence on space segment economics of —certain satellite technologies, —satellite and payload mass, —number of payloads per spacecraft, —satellite lifetime, or —spare policy.     

A new facility for fluid sciences: The liquid structure facility

The Liquid Structure Facility (LSF) is presently under development under ESA contract. It will be able to perform a wide range of fluid science experiments taking use of the determination of the velocity, temperature, concentration fields and the interface shape deformation. This facility will be activated by telecommands and/or manually by the crew. The key points of the LSF are the different diagnostic configuration capabilities, the modularity of the facility, and the accuracy of the control at the boundary conditions (and thus of the stimuli). The LSF is structured around four different modules:

• —the cell module which is exchangeable and is dedicated to an experiment or to a group of experiments, it allows to achieve a high accuracy level for the boundary conditions

• —the temperature control module using a liquid cooling loop which can impose a good thermal stability to the cell module

• —the diagnostic module

• —the electronic and data handling module.

The capabilities of the facility are described in terms of stimuli and diagnostic performances.     

Why rover preparatory programmes? The example of the French programme “VAP”

The very first activities concerning planetary rovers began in 1964 in the Soviet Union and in the United States for lunar missions. Nowadays, with the increase of new mission needs and technical possibilities, several space agencies have engaged in some preliminary programmes in that area with the following objectives:

• —to prepare their involvement in future international rover missions

• —to ease contacts/discussions between scientists and engineers

• —to study and develop a new generation of in situ experiments

• —to perform system/mission analysis in conjunction with the definition of the mission objectives

• —to analyze robotic problematics and implement robotic concepts in the rover architectures.

To perform these activities, several organizations have been set up in Russia, the United States, Japan, Italy and France, according to the relative weight of space engineering over robotic research.

In the case of the French programme (‘VAP—Automatic Planetary Rover’), the organization is based on a partnership between the CNES, a scientific committee, four national research laboratories and industries in order to optimize scientific and technical work, with an optimal use of past robotic research studies, as well as to generate spin-offs for Earth applications. Indeed, as a preliminary result, we now have a co-operative agreement with Russia to procure cameras and associated software for the autonomous navigation of the Marsokhod 96 and 2 projects for terrestrial applications of robotic concepts defined within the framework of the VAP programme.     

Potential evolution of an international moon base programme

The Moon is a major target in expanding human activity in Space. President Bush has called for a Space Exploration Initiative. European participation may depend on achieving an affordable programme and identifying distinct elements for non-U.S. participation. Affordability requires that all participants can influence the “cost to user” of Base operations. If lunar activity is to evolve towards resource exploitation, there will need to be a progressive reduction in operating costs. European interest would prefer participation that allowed longer-term independent interests. The paper addresses how non-U.S. agencies could contribute valuable elements to an International Moon Base while meeting three criteria:

• — Keep a core infrastructure under U.S. control.

• — Avoid a total reliance by the partner on U.S. services.

• — Allow the partner to evolve towards an eventual, semi-autonomous or autonomous capability.

The paper illustrates possible implications of meeting these constraints through “mini infrastructures” combining several elements to form a working architecture. It is concluded that any European participation in an International Moon Base Programme should contain both Space transport and surface elements.     

US government policy - the major factor shaping the international commercial space launch marketplace

In this Viewpoint — an edited version of a statement made to the US House Committee on Science's Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics' hearing on ‘US launch strategy’ — the President of Arianespace, Inc analyses the overriding importance of US government policies and executive decisions on the shaping and behavior of the international market in commercial space launch services. Chief among these is the overruling of commercial imperatives by foreign policy and national security interests and the consequent regular intervention of the US government in launch decisions. The ability of Arianespace successfully to compete in a market severely distorted as a result of these interventions, including the encouragement of joint ventures between US and Russian or Ukrainian companies, is explained.     

Sputnik fever — again?

The author offers some comments on the drawbacks of another US-Soviet space race. She compares the relative positions of the USA and the USSR in various areas of space science and technology, and concludes that the USSR does not lead in all areas. More importantly, she argues that it is distressing still to be portraying the superpowers as in a race in space. ‘Sputnik fever’ the first time round showed that a space race does not lead to a strong, long-term US space programme. She argues that cooperation in some areas — perhaps a trip to Mars — could b an alternative.     

Synthetic observation alignment, and design implications for instruments on small satellites

Spaceborne Earth-Observation requires multi-spectral views of identical physical scenes, so that geophysical parameters can be derived from synergistic scene differences or combinations. This is traditionally achieved by mounting many instruments on a large platform, and constraining their beamshape relation and alignment — an approach inapplicable to SmallSats. However, an adequate density of image samples reports the entire ‘alias-free’ information-content of the spatially-continuous image-scene. Under these conditions sample-alignment is irrelevant; beamshape matching and alignment can be accurately synthesised by signal-processing manipulations of reported data — allowing instruments or channels to be mounted on separate platforms, without physical alignment. Current meteorological instruments vary in their image alias, but for many these limitations could be eliminated by small design changes; or a more radical change could give smaller and cheaper instruments with improved spatial resolution.     

Impact of unification on German space activities

1991 is one of the most decisive years in the history of German space activities. Not only do major policy decisions have to be taken concerning the continuation of the European programmes Hermes and Columbus — which, due to the heavy involvement of Germany in international cooperation, strongly affect its space policy — but one year after the unification of Germany the country is about to set up its new space programme. This is in fact a ‘new’ programme because for the first time it includes all space activities of the unified Germany.     

Space in the UK: something to celebrate?

This article discusses current UK space activities that were debated during the ‘policy’ day of a 3-day ‘Festival of Space’ held at Surrey University in July 2003. While the emphasis is on using space to fulfil the needs of society, it is apparent that crafting a coherent strategy that would provide the political support needed to do this—in Europe as well as in the UK—remains difficult.     

Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis?

During the last 40 years — the merest blip in world history — talk about Homo astronauticus has signalled a growing awareness that the passengers on planet Earth can, if they want, take off for other destinations. If the scale of past advances is a satisfactory measure of future possibilities, then the wish will be father of the achievement.     

Roboter in der Raumfahrt

(Robots in space)—The paper emphasizes the enormous automation impact in industry caused by microelectronics, a “byproduct” of space-technology. The evolutionary stages of robotic are outlined and it is shown that there are a lot of reasons for more automation, artificial intelligence and robotic in space, too.

The telemanipulator concept is compared with the industrial robot concept, both showing up an increasing degree of similarity. The state of the art in sensory systems is discussed. By hand of the typical operations needed in space as rendezvous, assembly and docking the required robot skill is indicated. As a conclusion it is stated that the basic technologies available with industrial robots today could solve a lot of space problems.

What remains to do—apart of course from ongoing research—is better integration and adaption of industrial techniques to the need of space technology.     

SPS — time for a pilot plant

Scientists have expended much energy researching SPS but their theories have never yet been realistically tested. It is time for this to change and SPS 2000 — a Japanese-sponsored project to construct and operate a pilot plant to supply electricity to residents of equatorial zones — could provide the means. The project and its benefits are described and the political—economic imperatives for undertaking it presented. The author argues that there are cogent — and practical — reasons for funding a pilot plant, especially given the vast sums spent on other space activities, and on nuclear power, although the latter has never lived up to expectations.     

Lifting the veil on CORONA

Information on some of the USA's military space reconnaisance programs has recently been declassified, allowing details of the nature of the technology used and its capabilities to be publicly aired. In this article, a personal account of the situation leading up to the creation of the USA's first military satellite system — named CORONA — is provided, along with discussion of its design, development and program management. CORONA's enormous impact on intelligence gathering is assessed; lessons learned from the program are presented.     

The pharao project: Towards a space clock using cold cs atoms

For several years, the “BNM-Laboratoire Primaire du Temps et des Fréquences” has worked on a cold atom frequency standard. With a cesium atomic fountain a resonance line width of 700 mHz has been obtained leading to a short-term stability of 2 × 10⁻¹³ τ^−1/2 down to 2 × 10⁻¹⁵ at 10⁴ s. A first evaluation of the fountain accuracy has been performed resulting in an accuracy of 3 × 10⁻¹⁵, three times better than previously achieved with thermal beams frequency standards. In the atomic fountain, gravity limits the interaction time to ˜1 s, hence the resonance line width to ˜0.5 Hz. A factor of 10 reduction in the line width could be obtained in a micro-gravity environment. The “Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales” (the French space agency), the “BNM-Laboratoire Primaire du Temps et des Fréquences”, the “Laboratoire de l'Horloge Atomique” and the “Laboratoire Kastler Brossel” have set up a collaboration to investigate a space frequency standard using cold atoms: the PHARAO project. A microgravity prototype has been constructed and operated first in the reduced gravity of aircraft parabolic flights in May 1997. It is designed as a transportable frequency standard. The PHARAO frequency standard could be a key element in future space missions in fundamental physics such as SORT (solar orbit relativity test), detection of gravitational waves, or for the realization of a global time scale and a new generation of positioning system.     

Waverider

On 17–19 October 1990 the University of Maryland hosted the 1st International Hypersonic Waverider Symposium. It has been a long wait; and although far more eminent contributors took part, there was also one amateur group. The comeback for the Waverider concept is due in part, at least, to determined advocacy by the amateur group, ASTRA — probably the first case of its kind. Duncan Lunan, President of ASTRA, explains.     

Transitioning to a space & air force: : moving beyond rhetoric?

Efforts within the US Air Force to integrate its two primary components, air and space, have yielded — at best — slow and dubious results. Many space advocates and analysts assumed that the vital role space played in the Gulf War would result in space being recognized as warranting an equal position with the air component of the Air Force, if not the creation of a separate service. Although rhetoric has seemed to support those assumptions, actual progress has remained slow. In this article, the role played by organizational culture as an inhibiting factor in integration is examined. Education, as both an element of culture and an indicator of organizational commitment, is also considered. The trials of ‘teaching’ and integrating space into an already existing structure at the senior Air Force Professional Military Education (PME) institution, the Air War College, is examined as illustrative. The conclusion reached is that the current environment is not conducive to integration and that, without a push from the outside, rhetoric will likely continue to outpace substantive progress, with potentially negative result.     

RLV economics: fiscal evaluation of NASA''s reusable launch vehicle effort

The US RLV program aims to stimulate commercial development of a next-generation heavy-lift launcher and lower launch costs by one order of magnitude from the Space Shuttle. This paper discusses the incentives needed to encourage private investment — income tax relief, investment mitigation, financing assistance — in the venture and uses a specifically developed case study model to evaluate their effectiveness. It finds that an R&D tax credit would be the most practical incentive. Directions for future work are provided.