Preparing a precursor program for the national aeronautics and space administration

As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) enters the next era of human exploration it must approach future missions with the most comprehensive understanding of the risks involved that is available. A proactive approach to understand and potentially mitigate these risks is through the implementation of an agency-wide precursor program. A properly implemented precursor program provides identification and analysis of forerunners to future failures that could affect the system in which they are detected, as well as potential implications throughout interfacing systems, the program, or other NASA programs. This global approach to the assessment and application of risk insights will serve as a pipeline by which the Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS) programs can share knowledge for future Lunar missions, Martian missions, and other agency endeavors. The identification of events or physical conditions that indicate future flight, mission, or campaign failure is imminent or that its probability of occurrence is unacceptably high is critical to success. This paper will define what precursors are and how they can be used to understand and mitigate future risks to crew, vehicles, or missions. The paper will detail why an agency-wide precursor program is needed at NASA as well as how such a program would differ from existing tools such as trending programs, Probabilistic Risk Assessments, and data collecting. These existing tools will be discussed and shown how they can provide a compliment to the success of an operational precursor program. This discussion will also refer to the currently existing Accident Sequence Precursor program at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and how this program might serve as a model for NASA.