The Safety Culture program is celebrating its 10-year anniversary at NASA. Over the past decade, program members have dedicated their time and energy to providing a platform for the NASA community to voice safety concerns without repercussion, communicating safety issues to agency and center leaders, and developing education to encourage contributions to Safety Culture in the workplace. After years of forming, developing and improving the Safety Culture program at NASA, the group is being honored for its tenacious efforts.

What does it mean to be the Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) director at Goddard Space Flight Center? According to the man himself, Eric Isaac, it’s as the title implies: it’s about being a leader that promotes keeping people safe and assuring the mission.

NASA recently announced a media teleconference that will take place at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, Friday, Oct. 18, to discuss recommendations presented by the Planetary Protection Independent Review Board, established in June 2019 by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. 

Jennifer Kunz, Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) director at Kennedy Space Center, believes everyone should have a life quote that defines how he or she operates.

“You’ll hear something some time and it will resonate with you,” she explained. “When you hear it, write it down.”

Personally, she’s guided by

“When you’re good, you will tell people; when you’re great, they will tell you.”

The Explosives and Pyrotechnics Safety program recently updated its policy regarding the storage and distribution of small arms ammunition.

Managing the oversight of ammunition affects both the Explosives and Pyrotechnics Safety program and center security offices, and requires careful definition of responsibilities and processes to eliminate redundant activities between the two groups.

An update to NASA-STD-8719.12A, Safety Standard for Explosives, Propellants, and Pyrotechnics added a new section to the standard that applies only to model rockets that makes them exempt from general explosives requirements that were unnecessarily prohibitive in this context. As a result, NASA’s outreach programs will have an easier time using model rockets for educational purposes.

NASA’s Range Flight Safety program recently released “UAS Range Flight Safety” (SMA-AS-WBT-300) to address the Range Flight Safety aspects of flying Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) at NASA. 

For the second straight year, XCELLENCE Awards by the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI) awarded first place in its Operations and Safety Organization category to NASA Langley Research Center’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Operations Office. The award recognizes the office’s overall safety and oversight of all UAS operations at Langley.