NASA Safety Panel Criticizes Commercial Crew Program for Lack of Openness

NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) released its annual report today.  Among its key points is criticism of NASA’s commercial crew program for its lack of openness, preventing the panel from offering “any informed opinion” on the certification process or “sufficiency of safety.”  The report’s release coincides with NASA’s Day of Remembrance in honor of the astronauts who died as the result of spaceflights.  The first of those accidents, the 1967 Apollo fire, led to Congress creating ASAP to advise NASA on safety.

The panel’s criticism of the commercial crew program was direct and unambiguous and levied at the very beginning of the report so as not to be missed:

“Within NASA, there are outstanding examples of programs that have inculcated a culture of clear and candid communications.  Their approach to accountability, good systems engineering, and respect, both up and down the organization chart, would find strong favor with the authors of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report.

“The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) is an exception to the culture of open communications.  Regrettably, the Panel has been denied the necessary timely access to information and is therefore unable to offer any informed opinion regarding the adequacy of the certification process or the sufficiency of safety in the CCP.  The NASA Administrator has committed to making the changes necessary to resolve this situation and to ensuring that these barriers are removed going forward into 2015.”

ASAP’s complaint comes just two days after NASA held a press conference with its commercial crew partners, Boeing and SpaceX, to herald the progress they are making to provide services to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) by the end of 2017.

In a color-coded “traffic signal” chart later in the report, ASAP rated “risk transparency — Insight and communications” as red, meaning an issue of “long-standing concern or an issue that has not been adequately addressed by NASA.”  It is the only one of nine areas designated that way.  In describing its concerns in that area, ASAP includes not only commercial crew, but the Space Launch System and Orion programs.

“Risk communications concerning commercial crew activities by the Director of Commercial Spaceflight Development has been less than forthcoming.  Because Probabilistic Risk Assessment results provide a risk assessment of the design capability at maturity, actual risks for early operations of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion could be significantly higher than the calculated or ‘advertised’ risk.  Because the perception of external stakeholders is vitally important, NASA’s Office of Communications must be cautious not to create or reinforce inaccurate perceptions of risk.”

A second key concern of the panel is what it calls the need for “constancy of purpose” at NASA.  It reflects the panel’s assessment that there is a “perceived lack of a well-defined mission for NASA’s space program” and a mismatch between NASA’s budget and what it is expected to do.  Reiterating what it said in prior years, ASAP finds that it is “imperative that NASA unambiguously articulate a well-defined purpose, including a path toward the execution of that mission, the technologies that need to be developed and matured, and the resources needed to accomplish that mission.”

ASAP criticizes NASA’s current “capabilities-based approach” which it believes is driven by budgets rather than a “purposeful, schedule-driven, goal-oriented endeavor.” While acknowledging that may be a pragmatic approach that could bridge a transition between presidential administrations, ASAP believes NASA would be better served to “focus on doing fewer things and on doing them better.” 

Without a clear and consistent goal, ASAP worries that schedule will become a “casualty” that could affect SLS and Orion in particular. 

The panel expressed other concerns about Orion and its use for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).   The panel assessed ARM itself as “a reasonable approach to a mission that is achievable,” but worries that the lack of an airlock on Orion adds risk because the entire capsule will have to be depressurized to allow the crew to exit and collect samples of the asteroid.  That means the crew will be entirely reliant on their spacesuits.  The spacesuits used for ISS spacewalks are “unworkable” for Orion, ASAP said, and although NASA officials have indicated that they have no plans to develop new spacesuits for ARM, ASAP suggests otherwise: “design and development of new-design suits, while underway, are still preliminary and untested.”   In addition, the panel notes, Orion is small and does not have much room for astronauts to move about or exercise even though the missions may last as long as three weeks:  “This long duration, crew habitability risk remains to be assessed and evaluated in order to develop an objective mission risk estimate.”

ASAP also is concerned about the small number of flights planned for SLS in terms of maintaining ground crew proficiency.   SLS and Orion are part of NASA’s Exploration Systems Development (ESD) program, which ASAP rates as “progressing very well.” but “there is much more work to be done … [in] defining the risks and the road to Mars.  These risks should continue to be communicated openly and transparently.”

The full ASAP report is posted on NASA’s website.   ASAP submits it both to NASA and to Congress.  ASAP chairman Vice Admiral Joseph Dyer (retired) typically is invited to testify to Congress about the panel’s findings each year.

ASAP was created by Congress in the NASA Authorization Act of 1968 (P.L. 90-67)  following the January 27, 1967 Apollo fire that killed Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee during a pre-launch ground test of what was expected to be the first Apollo mission.   Fourteen more astronauts subsequently died in two space shuttle accidents.  The January 28, 1986 space shuttle Challenger tragedy killed NASA astronauts Francis “Dick” Scobee, Mike Smith, Ron McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Judy Resnik; Hughes Aircraft engineer Greg Jarvis; and New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.  On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during its return to Earth, killing NASA astronauts Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, and Laurel Clark, and Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon.

Each year NASA holds a Day of Remembrance honoring all the astronauts who lost their lives in spaceflights.  Today is NASA’s 2015 Day of Remembrance,  NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, members of the Challenger families and others participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington Cemetery.  Several NASA centers held their own remembrance events.