The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC), NASA Safety Center, and Office of Safety and Mission Assurance all work to ensure the safety and mission success of NASA’s portfolio of programs and projects. While each has its own unique mission (see sidebar), collaboration and communication between these organizations is essential to NASA’s missions. As the new deputy director for safety for the NESC, Michael “Mike” Hess will work to strengthen the existing bridges between these organizations as the agency’s commercial partnerships and coordination with industry continue to evolve. 

NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) recently released NPR 8715.24, Planetary Protection Provisions for Robotic Extraterrestrial Missions, effective Sept. 24, 2021. The new NASA Procedural Requirement (NPR) covers the agency’s new paradigm and overall approach to Planetary Protection and takes the place of the now cancelled NPR 8020.12D, Planetary Protection Provisions for Robotic Extraterrestrial Missions to integrate Planetary Protection. 

Recently, the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) updated its Planetary Protection policy for the Moon, including adding Category II sub-designations to accommodate missions to different regions. The new Category IIa and IIb designations reflect the importance of the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) to science and the Artemis generation of human exploration.

Captain Randy Cruz, former senior advisor to the NASA administrator, received a “Yes, If” coin on July 23, for serving as a constant advocate for Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) at NASA.

NASA-STD-8719.26A, NASA Requirements for Ground Based Non-Code Metallic Pressure Vessels went into effect May 11, 2021. This standard is intended to manage risk to personnel, facilities, missions and the environment posed by the use of existing ground-based, non-code metallic Pressure Vessels that either 1) do not comply with applicable American Society of Mechanical Engineers code requirements specified in Occupational Safety and Health Administration 29 CFR pt. 1910 regulations or 2) were modified and no longer comply with the code.

The NASA Software Assurance Research Program (SARP) is sponsoring four research projects in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 to benefit Software Assurance processes across the agency. The research program is aligned to support agency goals to improve how NASA performs Software Assurance activities.

NASA joined the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for the sixth Trilateral Safety and Mission Assurance Conference (TRISMAC) May 17-20, 2021. The trio met virtually to focus on the theme, “Safety and Mission Assurance in Diversifying Space,” which included technical presentations by experts in their fields from government, academia and industry on innovative tools, technologies and methodologies to assure safety and mission success.

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’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made headlines in April after successfully completing the first powered controlled flight by an aircraft on a planet besides Earth. Ingenuity’s tremendous success demonstrates the continuing evolution of NASA’s Risk Management processes for infusing commercial technologies into space missions. While rightly described as a “high-risk, high-reward” technology demonstration, Ingenuity is completely based on well-reasoned and disciplined engineering analysis and methodical risk identification and mitigation schemes.

The Office of Safety and Mission Assurance Layered Pressure Vessel Risk Mitigation project team designed software to simplify and improve calculations required by the ASTM E1921, Standard Test Method for Determination of Reference Temperature, T0, for Ferritic Steels in the Transition Range.