A Vision for Spaceflight Reliability: NASA's Objectives Based Strategy

In defining the direction for a new standard, NASA's Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) has started from first principles. This has meant extracting critical objectives that its programs need to undertake a reliable mission and then structuring these objectives to lead mission planning. This back-to-basics approach to examining cross cutting concerns has yielded an objectives hierarchy, which has emerged from NASA reliability expertise, to define critical approaches for achieving high reliability and maintainability (R&M). It embodies the knowledge attained over years of NASA experience; yet, the hierarchy extracts essentials without prescriptive processes that may encumber creativity and effective decision-making. It is meant to lead, not follow, and to enable not encumber. Creating a hierarchy as a basis for assurance implementation is a proven approach that has emerged from the safety case ideals. This approach holds the opportunity to enable new directions in an evolving design framework, in which models will govern optimization to achieve the best designs and prescribed documents will take a back seat. The hierarchy itself may look simple, but it is the drivetrain for achieving the reliability necessary for successful missions. The expectation is that it will be put to use, as the design environment evolves, to enable the right products in a new design environment and to cost effectively achieve key objectives.