Key government space agencies Dec. 3 agreed on a new set of mission assurance principles that they say will lead to improved launch success.
“With the strategic intent and a memorandum of understanding, we can make more effective, coordinated progress toward sustained mission success,” Wanda Austin, president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, told reporters during a teleconference Dec. 3. “Experience has demonstrated that the cost of mission assurance is minor compared with the cost and impact of a delayed or failed mission.”
The memorandum is based on a mission assurance framework that recognizes the importance of the health of the shrinking industrial base that serves U.S. space agencies, according to the Aerospace Corporation. Participating government organizations include: the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), NASA and the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency.
“Space operations and space launch are tough, demanding businesses,” said Bruce Carlson, Director of NRO. “It’s expensive and we only get one chance to get it right. We need a unified approach to mission assurance that is repeatable, timely, and predictable.
“We need everyone–government and industry–to use this standardized process,” he added.
The effort to develop a better mission assurance program was initiated after the 2003 Defense Science Board recommended that industry address serious problems in the U.S. space industrial base. The goal of the effort is to create an environment that delivers “100 percent mission success” by adopting best practices.
“Our number one priority must be mission success in all we do, from the earliest stages of a program,” Gen. Tom Sheridan, commander of SMC, said. “Government and industry share in the responsibility and we must find ways to work together more effectively in order to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”