The April 2020 issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News is now available. This issue includes the articles, "Three Recent Breakup Events," "The New NASA Orbital Debris Engineering Model 3.1," and "Composite Material Char Rate and Strength Retention Study at University of Texas at Austin," among other pieces.

The NASA Software Assurance Research Program is sponsoring five research projects aimed to benefit Software Assurance processes across the agency. The research program is aligned to support goals to improve how NASA performs Software Assurance activities.

The U.K.’s National Measurement Institute — National Physics Lab (NPL) — recently made its full suite of e-Learning training courses available for free through June 30, 2020. According to the NPL website, this was in acknowledgement that “Operating remotely and working from home has become a new reality for many and employers, employees and students alike are all looking for ways to adapt.”

The NASA Human Factors Task Force received the 2019 Agency Honor Awards Group Achievement Award for its outstanding leadership in improving the use of Human Factors processes and techniques to ensure the agency continues to carry out its mission safely.

NASA recognized the NASA Safety Culture Working Group’s (SCWG) outstanding contributions to the agency’s mission by presenting its members with the 2019 Agency Honor Awards Group Achievement Award.

The Office of Safety and Mission’s (OSMA) Explosives and Pyrotechnics Safety program recently released new online SATERN training, “Basic Explosive Safety Refresher,” to the agency.

Learn the latest details on the release of the Orbital Debris Engineering Model, ORDEM 3.1, in this article from Orbital Debris Quarterly News, Volume 24, Issue 1, February 2020.

The Office of Safety and Mission Assurance’s Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) recently released “A Meteoroid Handbook for Aerospace Engineers and Managers” (NASA/TM-2019-220142) to help educate programs across the agency about the environments their spacecraft could encounter during their missions and, in turn, help programs protect their spacecraft from potentially damaging threats.

The February 2020 issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News is now available and includes the article “The Inaugural International Orbital Debris Conference,” republished here. 

This issue also includes the articles “U.S. National Space Council Announces Update to the USG ODMSP,” “Fifty-first SOZ Unit Breaks Up,” “Debris Assessment Software Version 3.0 Release,” and “The 2019 U.S. Government Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices.” 

When working with explosives, it’s essential to fully understand the hazards and potential risks to employees and facilities in the area should something go wrong. However, it’s also possible for non-explosive materials to become energetic in a way that poses similar, potentially deadly and damaging risks. These high-risk operations — whether relative to “traditional” explosives or energetic materials — need to be properly managed to ensure a safe work environment. How Explosives Safety Officers are assessing and managing that risk varies from center to center to accommodate the diverse environments and work being done. The following examples show how three unique NASA centers and facilities are managing these risks.