NASA updated NPR 8715.3, NASA General Safety Program Requirements on April 13 from Revision D With Change 2 to Revision D With Change 3. This update reflects recent changes to and ensures consistency with NPR 8715.1, NASA Safety and Health Programs. 

NASA revised NPR 8715.1 on Feb. 1, 2021, consolidating Institutional Safety programs into a single NASA Procedural Requirements (NPR) document and providing a consistent treatment of technical discipline areas. (See “NPR 8715.1B Updates Agency’s Approach to Institutional Safety” for more detail.)

The update to NPR 8715.3 

• Removed the Institutional Safety roles, responsibilities and requirements (parts of Chapter 1; all of Chapters 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8; and Appendices C, E, and F)
• Removed all topics now addressed in NPR 8715.1
• Updated paragraphs P.1 Purpose and P.2 Applicability to reflect changes
• Removed outdated and unused references, definitions and acronyms (primarily related to Institutional Safety)
• Removed other unnecessary and outdated content such as Section 1.6, Risk Assessment and Risk Acceptance (addressed in NPR 8000.4, Agency Risk Management Procedural Requirements) and Section 2.3, System Safety Framework (addressed in the System Safety Handbooks).

With these updates, NPR 8715.3 now focuses on mission safety and success instead of a mix of both Institutional Safety and mission safety and success topics. Two future updates to NPR 8715.3 will focus on 1) updating and clarifying the tailoring process or mission safety and success requirements and 2) clarifying NASA’s mission safety and success responsibilities and procedures. In addition, NASA developed and is reviewing a draft new NPR slated to supersede Chapter 6, Nuclear Safety for Launching of Radioactive Materials of NPR 8715.3 to address NSPM-20 and SPD-6 (see “What’s New: Nuclear Flight Safety Program Updates” for more information).