Left to Right: Looper, Lucero, DeLoach, Ross, Carrington
and Willie Lyles, director of SMA Directorate at Johnson

Russ DeLoach, NASA’s chief of Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA), presented four Johnson Space Center engineers with “Yes, If” coins for their continuous commitment to Safety Culture in their work on the Pressurized Rover (PR) project in collaboration with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The team members received “Yes, If” coins in recognition of their instrumental effort to address top program risks and recommend novel solutions. Team members include David Lucero, SMA lead for the PR project; Scott Ross, Chief Safety and Mission Assurance Officer (CSO) for the Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program (EHP); Tom Carrington, CSO for Moon to Mars International Projects; and Chris Looper, deputy CSO, EHP.

The team has worked on the PR project with JAXA within the EHP over the last two years. EHP currently includes three Artemis projects: the PR project, the exploration spacesuit project and the Lunar Terrain Vehicle project as well as the ISS EVA Office.

The PR project provides essential tools for multiple “firsts” in the history of manned spaceflight and lunar surface exploration. The pressurized rover will be a two-person, live-in utility vehicle capable of traveling long distances over challenging terrain with built-in Extravehicular Activity (EVA) capability. 

Many aspects of defining requirements and a concept of operations for the PR, as well as working with JAXA at program tiger teams and Technical Interchange Meetings (TIMs) discussing various design concepts, required a “Yes, If” approach. The team focused on specific areas through the design phase to ensure crew safety, such as the cabin-as-airlock design and the potential contingency capabilities with the design.

The mass and volume limitations placed on the pressurized rover due to launch vehicle capabilities has led to ample discussion and evaluation of a proposed cabin-as-airlock configuration during JAXA preliminary design reviews. This design is a departure from NASA’s EVA mode of operations for space shuttles and the International Space Station (ISS), which use dedicated airlocks.

During the project reviews, the team assessed each of the activities associated with EVA operations, including nominal and contingencies while incorporating a “Yes, If” approach to consider non-standard EVA approaches. The team communicated their approaches during program tiger teams, multiple TIMs and preliminary design reviews with JAXA and the EHP.

“While supporting program tiger teams to address top program risks, this group of outstanding SMA professionals addressed all potential yet feasible scenarios as a way to mitigate the risk associated with this potential catastrophic hazard,” said Gail Skowron, assistant director of Johnson’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance. “Ultimately, their effort in supporting the tiger teams will include invoking crew survival methods for contingency EVA operations that have not been attempted to date by NASA.”

While embracing a new solution, Lucero, Ross, Carrington and Looper each continue to embrace the “Yes, If” approach to safety with measured flexibility and the inventiveness required to fully support the unique challenges of the PR project. These four individuals represent NASA’s Safety Culture in their commitment to taking the time to understand every potential hazard and seeking out proactive measures to prevent mishaps or close calls.