NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap

References

Official investigation report

IEEE Spectrum investigation report

Official report on project management at NASA

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Agenda

Spacecraft and its mission Mission failure Failure causes

root cause contributing causes

NASA’s mission planning paradigm

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Agenda

Spacecraft and its mission Mission failure Failure causes

root cause contributing causes

NASA’s mission planning paradigm

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Mars Climate Orbiter - Mission

The first weather satellite for another planet profile Martian atmosphere map Martian surface Mars Polar Lander support relay for future missions

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Mars Climate Orbiter - Spacecraft

Assymetric solar array Attitude control

coarse: jet thrusters fine: 3x flywheels

Single onboard computer IBM PowerPC 20MHz 128MB RAM no tape or solid-state recorder 18MB flash

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Mars Climate Orbiter – Flight to Mars

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Agenda

Spacecraft and its mission Mission failure Failure causes

root cause contributing causes

NASA’s mission planning paradigm

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Mars Climate Orbiter - Mishap

went off course by 100 km hit the atmosphere and burned ? passed the atmosphere and went on ?

$125.000.000 loss

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Agenda

Spacecraft and its mission Mission failure Failure causes

root cause contributing causes

NASA’s mission planning paradigm

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Mission Failure – Root Cause

In NASA nomenclature a root cause is:

Along a chain of events leading to a mishap, the first causal action or failure to act that could have been controlled by policy/practice/procedure

Root Cause – failure to use metric system in ground software files used in trajectory models

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Mars Climate Orbiter - Spacecraft

Assymetric solar array Attitude control

coarse: jet thrusters fine: 3x flywheels

AMD – Angular Momentum Desaturation

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Mission Failure – Contributing Causes

In NASA nomenclature a contributing cause is:

A factor, event or circumstance which led directly or indirectly to the dominant root cause or which contributed to the severity of the mishap

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Mission Failure – Contributing Causes

Contributing causes undetected mismodelling of velocity changes navigation team unfamilliar with spacecraft failure to perform emergency trajectory correction poor system engineering process informal communication of project teams insufficient staff training insufficient navigation team stuffing poor verification of ground software

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Mission Failure – Contributing Cause 1

Contributing causes undetected mismodelling of velocity changes navigation team unfamilliar with spacecraft failure to perform emergency trajectory correction poor system engineering process informal communication of project teams insufficient staff training insufficient navigation team stuffing poor verification of ground software

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Mission Failure – Contributing Cause 2

Contributing causes undetected mismodelling of velocity changes navigation team unfamilliar with spacecraft failure to perform emergency trajectory correction poor system engineering process informal communication of project teams insufficient staff training insufficient navigation team stuffing poor verification of ground software

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Mission Failure – Contributing Cause 3

Contributing causes undetected mismodelling of velocity changes navigation team unfamilliar with spacecraft failure to perform emergency trajectory correction poor system engineering process informal communication of project teams insufficient staff training insufficient navigation team stuffing poor verification of ground software

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Mission Failure – Contributing Cause 4

Contributing causes undetected mismodelling of velocity changes navigation team unfamilliar with spacecraft failure to perform emergency trajectory correction poor system engineering process informal communication of project teams insufficient staff training insufficient navigation team stuffing poor verification of ground software

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Mission Failure – Contributing Cause 5

Contributing causes undetected mismodelling of velocity changes navigation team unfamilliar with spacecraft failure to perform emergency trajectory correction poor system engineering process informal communication of project teams insufficient staff training insufficient navigation team stuffing poor verification of ground software

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Mission Failure – Contributing Cause 6

Contributing causes undetected mismodelling of velocity changes navigation team unfamilliar with spacecraft failure to perform emergency trajectory correction poor system engineering process informal communication of project teams insufficient staff training insufficient navigation team stuffing poor verification of ground software

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Mission Failure – Contributing Cause 7

Contributing causes undetected mismodelling of velocity changes navigation team unfamilliar with spacecraft failure to perform emergency trajectory correction poor system engineering process informal communication of project teams insufficient staff training insufficient navigation team stuffing poor verification of ground software

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Mission Failure – Contributing Cause 8

Contributing causes undetected mismodelling of velocity changes navigation team unfamilliar with spacecraft failure to perform emergency trajectory correction poor system engineering process informal communication of project teams insufficient staff training insufficient navigation team stuffing poor verification of ground software

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Agenda

Spacecraft and its mission Mission failure Failure causes

root cause contributing causes

NASA’s mission planning paradigm

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NASA’s Mission Planning Paradigm

„Faster, better, cheaper“ approach

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NASA’s Mission Planning Paradigm

„Mission success first“ approach defining a minimum set of mission success criteria sufficient analysis and verification prior to launch assurance and robustness of the design ability to learn from failure

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NASA’s Mission Planning Paradigm

„Mission success first“ approach defining a minimum set of mission success criteria sufficient analysis and verification prior to launch assurance and robustness of the design ability to learn from failure

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NASA’s Mission Planning Paradigm

„Mission success first“ approach defining a minimum set of mission success criteria sufficient analysis and verification prior to launch assurance and robustness of the design ability to learn from failure

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NASA’s Mission Planning Paradigm

„Mission success first“ approach defining a minimum set of mission success criteria sufficient analysis and verification prior to launch assurance and robustness of the design ability to learn from failure

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NASA’s Mission Planning Paradigm

„Mission success first“ approach defining a minimum set of mission success criteria sufficient analysis and verification prior to launch assurance and robustness of the design ability to learn from failure

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NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap

Thank you!

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