System Safety

This course instructs the student in the fundamentals of hazard analyses and strategies for controlling hazards. It explains several types of analyses – preliminary hazard, change, system and subsystem, fault hazard, operating and support, and contingency – including their goals, applications, and methods of evaluation. It also discusses procedure reviews, including their purpose, criteria for analysis, and basic steps.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-213

Length: 8.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for any personnel who perform/review hazard analyses or manage safety programs; new SMA employees with no prior Hazards Analysis knowledge or experience, and experienced SMA employees who need a refresher; non-SMA employees seeking a first-time exposure to Hazard Analysis.

This course is designed to provide learners with a broad understanding of the System Safety discipline at NASA. It does not provide in-depth training on any of the specific tasks required of a System Safety professional. Other courses in and outside of the STEP curriculum are available on SATERN for in-depth study of all the topics introduced in this course.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-211

Length: 13.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for new SMA employees with no prior System Safety knowledge or experience; experienced SMA employees in need of a refresher on the subject of System Safety; non-SMA employees seeking a first-time exposure to the subject of System Safety.

The purpose of this directive is to provide the accepted standard for quality management requirements that is used, in whole or in part, to ensure the effective and consistent implementation of quality assurance programs for NASA's missions.

The human-rating requirements in this NPR apply to the development and operation of crewed space systems developed by NASA used to conduct NASA human spaceflight missions. This NPR may apply to other crewed space systems when documented in separate requirements or agreements.

This policy outlines NASA's responsibilities as they relate to safety and mission success.

This NASA Procedural Requirements document provides the requirements for risk management for the agency, its institutions, and its programs and projects.

This is the second of two volumes that collectively comprise the NASA System Safety Handbook. Volume 1 (NASA/SP-2010-580) was prepared for the purpose of presenting the overall framework for System Safety and for providing the general concepts needed to implement the framework. Volume 2 provides guidance for implementing these concepts as an integral part of systems engineering and Risk Management.

The purpose of Volume 1 of the NASA System Safety Handbook is to present the overall framework for System Safety and to provide the general concepts needed to implement the framework. The treatment addresses activities throughout the system life cycle to assure that the system meets safety performance requirements and is as safe as reasonably practicable.

This course is designed for non-safety practitioners and/or those new to hazard report evaluation. It is a portion of a training set developed for non-safety practitioners — specifically the NASA personnel reviewing hazard reports for the Commercial Crew Program.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-901

Length: 3.75 hours

Audience: This course is intended for technical and/or non-safety personnel who evaluate hazard reports or manage programs and projects.

System Safety Engineering is an engineering discipline requiring specialized professional knowledge and skills in applying scientific and engineering principles, criteria and techniques to identify and eliminate hazards, or reduce the risks associated with hazards. This training course builds on the knowledge of the safety professional or the engineering supervisor/manager and advances their skills in techniques supporting hazard discovery, assessment and control. The course includes descriptions of methods for establishing and managing a System Safety program. It also provides techniques in hazard analysis and reliability calculations.

This course begins with a brief review of fundamental safety Risk Management concepts, but is designed primarily to provide an in-depth understanding of all aspects of system safety.

Topics discussed include

• Concepts in Risk Management
• Identification of System Safety Requirements and Implementation of a System Safety Program
• Working With a Risk Assessment Matrix
• Preliminary Hazard Analysis/Preliminary Hazard List
• Failure Modes and Effects Analysis
• Fault Tree Analysis
• Event Tree Analysis
• Cause-Consequence Analysis
• Operating and Support Hazard Analysis/Writing Procedures
• Introduction to Sneak Circuit Analysis
• Introduction to Software Safety
• Human Factors

Included in this course is a series of practical exercises of increasing complexity to test the student’s understanding of the concepts presented.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-440

Length: 28.00 hours

Audience: This course is recommended for managers and engineers whose work involves recognizing and managing System Safety risks.

This course will provide an overview of System Safety practices that play a supporting role in implementation of NPR 8000.4A, Agency Risk Management Procedural Requirements. System Safety practices and their tie to Systems Engineering from qualitative to quantitative assessments will be described. Included in the course discussion will be examples of scenario characteristics (e.g., hardware failures, human errors or phenomenological events leading to a mishap). Elements of the System Safety case, including hazards, modeling, performance measures and uncertainty will be addressed. How decisions are supported through application of System Safety tools and technical skills will be explored by describing decision objectives, the role of communication and how information is managed.

This computer-based course is a video capture of the instructor-led System Safety I course, SMA-RISK-OSMA-0011.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-210

Length: 8.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for Safety and Mission Assurance engineers and specialists.

This course is designed for non-safety practitioners or those new to hazard analysis. This course is condensed from a module of the System Safety Fundamentals course (SMA-SS-WBT-0002).

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-200

Length: 1.00 hour

Audience: This course is intended for any technical or non-technical personnel who perform/review hazard analysis or manage programs and projects.

This course provides an introduction of System Safety at NASA.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units. The NSC is an IACET Authorized Provider.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-100

Length: 1.50 hours

Audience: This course is intended for Safety and Mission Assurance personnel and anyone interested in learning more about this topic.

This course is focused on improving overall Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) professional knowledge of and involvement in the acquisition process. Key objectives for participants include contributing to acquisition strategy development, optimizing ability to integrate pertinent SMA requirements into acquisitions, and objectively assessing contractor proposals, deliverables and performance. Course material and subject matter encompasses contemporary acquisition practices and requirements compiled from federal regulations, agency policy and requirements, and successful industry practices. The course also includes discussion and objective assessment of agency commercial space market development and acquisition options.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0023

Length: 20.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for SMA personnel involved in contract development, source selection or performance evaluation.

This course will provide engineers and managers with a better understanding of how modeling and simulation can be used to support development of a Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA). Using a combination of modeling and simulation techniques enables a PSA to represent risk scenarios both more realistically and in ways that closely parallel traditional design and analysis activities. This course will also discuss the roles of modeling and simulation in developing Risk-Informed Safety Cases as discussed in NASA/SP-2010-58, NASA System Safety Handbook.

Modeling

NASA's current development efforts rely increasingly on physics-based models. The first section of the course will discuss how these models can be adapted for PSA support. We will discuss how to use the output of physical models in PSA, what types of problems lend themselves to physical models, strategies for using engineering models to bound a problem, and approaches for focusing modeling efforts on the areas with the highest return on investment. Examples related to human spaceflight missions will be shown to illustrate these principles.

Simulation

In this course, simulation is a means of generating “virtual experience” using an integrated, probabilistic model of a system and its potential risks. The second section of the course will focus on the utilization of simulation techniques for risk characterization of space missions. We will discuss what constitutes a simulation, advantages and disadvantages of simulation methods, what characteristics make a given problem a good candidate for simulation approaches, data requirements, and validation and verification. Example mission risk simulations will be shared to illustrate key approaches.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units. The NSC is an IACET Authorized Provider.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0015

Length: 8.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for engineers and engineering project managers.

This course will provide a basic understanding of the use and application of the NASA Accident Precursor Analysis (APA) process. The course covers the general APA methodology; APA process roles and responsibilities; building a caseload for APA; generalizing an anomaly failure mechanism to other potential occurrences; grading an anomalous condition for risk modeling, observation and trending, or no further action; and the insight into system risk that the APA process is designed to produce.

This computer-based course is a video capture of the instructor-led Accident Precursor Analysis II course, SMA-RISK-OSMA-0014.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0014

Length: 16.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for engineers and engineering project managers requiring a background in probability and statistics.

ANSI/NCSL Z540.1-1994 (R2002), Calibration Laboratories and Measuring and Test Equipment – General Requirements [Z540.1] includes a requirement for calibration procedures to have a minimum Test Accuracy Ratio (TAR) of 4:1. This course includes an overview of the TAR, the formulas for calculating a TAR and examples of TAR calculations. The course also covers the calculation and use of guard-bands for calibrations in which the 4:1 TAR cannot be achieved.

Course: SMA-HQ-WBT-217

Length: 2.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for personnel responsible for the calibration of Measuring and Test Equipment and for anyone responsible for managing or auditing those calibration activities.

The objective of this course is to familiarize participants with the NASA System Safety framework as discussed in the NASA System Safety Handbook, and its relationship to Risk Management and Systems Engineering. Particular emphasis is given to the conduct of Integrated Safety Analysis (ISA) and its application to decision-making. Other key concepts include an overview of the NASA System Safety framework, development of system-level safety performance requirements, levying safety-related engineering and process requirements, system design support, allocating requirements, maintaining adequate safety performance throughout the system life cycle, developing and evaluating a risk-informed safety case, and accepting safety risk.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0012

Length: 16.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for engineers and engineering project managers.

This course will help develop practitioner user-level skills in performing fault tree analysis, including the topic of fault tree to event tree linking approaches. The course, through the use of discussion and examples, provides hands-on modeling experience. The prerequisite for this course is Basic Fault Tree Analysis I.

This computer-based course is a video capture of the instructor-led Basic Fault Tree Analysis II course, SMA-RISK-OSMA-0010.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0010

Length: 16.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for engineers and engineering project managers.

This course will provide a basic understanding of the use and development of Boolean logic-based models such as fault trees. The course covers the topics of the history of fault tree analysis, basic events and associated probability concepts; basic reliability modeling; common logic gate types, strengths and limitations of logic-based models; and construction methods for fault tree analysis.

This computer-based course is a video capture of the instructor-led Basic Fault Tree Analysis I course, SMA-RISK-OSMA-0009.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0009

Length: 8.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for engineers and engineering project managers.

This course will provide a basic understanding of the use and application of the NASA Accident Precursor Analysis (APA) process. Its content is based on the NASA APA Process Guide Version 1.0. Content includes an overview of the NASA APA process, the technical details and purpose of the various steps in the APA process, interspersed with opportunities for student participation throughout the course to illustrate the key learning points. This course is intended for NASA program, project, mission support, institutional, systems engineering, and Safety and Mission Assurance personnel who wish to get a top-level understanding of NASA’s APA process.

This computer-based course is a video capture of the instructor-led Accident Precursor Analysis I course, SMA-RISK-OSMA-0007.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0007

Length: 8.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for engineers and engineering project managers requiring a background in probability and statistics.

This course explores advanced applications of Bayesian statistical inference in risk assessment through lectures and hands-on case studies using numerical tools. The emphasis is on practical calculations using modern tools rather than on theory.

This computer-based course is a video capture of the instructor-led Probability & Statistics II course, SMA-RISK-OSMA-0006.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0006

Length: 16.00 hours

Audience: Engineers and engineering project managers requiring a background in probability and statistics.

This course provides an overview of quantitative concepts from the fields of probabilistic modeling, statistics and reliability theory that arise frequently in Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA). Through lecture and example problems, participants are presented with mathematical techniques from probability and statistics that have applications in current PRA. This course is intended for the familiarization of NASA program, project, mission support, institutional, systems engineering, and Safety and Mission Assurance personnel who wish to become more effective participants in their organizational units’ applications of probabilistic techniques.

This computer-based course is a video capture of the instructor-led Probability & Statistics I course, SMA-RISK-OSMA-0005.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0005

Length: 8.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for engineers and engineering project managers requiring a background in probability and statistics.

This course covers the application of Bayesian inference methods in Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) of space systems.

The course begins with a short introduction to PRA and its role in Risk-Informed Decision-Making. After this presentation, a variety of issues are addressed related to estimating parameters used in PRAs. In the first part of the course, general concepts such as probability, probabilistic models, and how to represent engineering information in terms of probability distributions are presented through examples. Later, more advanced quantification issues are discussed, such as missing data and model validation. Tools needed to carry out the Monte Carlo analysis, such as WinBUGS, are introduced and demonstrated.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0004

Length: 24.00 hours

Audience:This course is intended for those who perform safety and systems engineering analyses.

This course instructs the student in the fundamentals of System Safety management and hazard analysis of hardware, software and operations. Basic concepts and principles of the analytical process are stressed. The student is introduced to NASA publications that require and guide safety analysis, as well as to general reference texts on subject areas covered.

At the completion of this course, the student will be able to

• Define and explain the basic elements of a System Safety program
• Define the basic elements of hazard analysis
• Explain the basic elements of a Hazard Report
• Accomplish a basic hazard analysis for a simple system, operation or activity using various hazard analysis techniques
• Explain the management elements of System Safety
• Identify basic NASA policy governing System Safety and hazard analysis
• Understand the importance of and basic elements of human factors and software in System Safety analysis and planning
• Know how to plan a basic System Safety program

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0002

Length: 36.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for any technical or non-technical personnel who perform/review safety analyses or manage safety programs.

This three-day workshop will cover the applicability of Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) to NASA programs/projects and activities, the current state-of-the-art of PRA methodology for aerospace applications, and its use in risk-informed decision-making (RIDM). The workshop will be valuable to both program/project managers and PRA practitioners. It will begin with an introduction to PRA for managers, including the PRA role in the RIDM process based on the draft of the RIDM handbook developed by the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance. Following this introduction, there will be a discussion of the major concepts used in PRA. Several recently completed studies that have used PRA techniques to support decision-making will be presented.

At the completion of this course, the student will be able to describe and/or discuss the following:

• The general elements of PRA and its role in decision-making
• The concept of probability and its application in PRA
• Logic-based modeling techniques (fault tree and event tree) and their application to PRA
• Simulation-based modeling techniques and their application to PRA
• How PRA is used in the design of concepts
• Event probabilities and hardware failure models
• Modeling of uncertainties and data analysis using Bayesian inference
• Modeling and quantification of dependent failures
• Human Reliability Analysis
• Importance measures and risk ranking and their applications
• Uncertainty propagation
• PRA modeling process
• Physical and phenomenological models
• Software failure modeling

This computer-based course is a video capture of the instructor-led Probabilistic Risk Assessment Methods (PRAM) for Practitioners and Managers course, SMA-RISK-OSMA-0001.

Participants who successfully complete this course will be awarded Continuing Education Units.

Course: SMA-SS-WBT-0001

Length: 24.00 hours

Audience: This course is intended for civil servants with responsibility to perform safety and systems engineering analyses.