800-PG-8621.0.1 - FOIA and eLibrary website! - NASA

Procedures and Guidelines (PG)
DIRECTIVE NO. 800-PG-8621.0.1 APPROVED BY Signature: Original Signed by
EFFECTIVE DATE: September 10, 2009 NAME: John H. Campbell
EXPIRATION DATE: September 10, 2014 TITLE: Director of Suborbital & Special Orbital
Projects
COMPLIANCE IS MANDATORY
Responsible Office: 800/Suborbital and Special Orbital Projects Directorate
Title: Suborbital Anomaly Investigation and Reporting
PREFACE
P.1 PURPOSE
This directive establishes the procedure for anomaly investigation and reporting and the process for
establishing an Anomaly Review Board (ARB) when one or more of the accepted risks occurs and
causes a mission failure or degradation in performance.
Any failure or anomaly that causes significant injury or death of participating or non participating
personnel or significant damage to any NASA or non-NASA equipment or facilities that was not in the
acceptable risk list will be investigated through the Mishap Investigation Board (MIB) process found in
NPR 8621.1, Mishap Reporting, Investigating, and Recordkeeping.
P.2 APPLICABILITY
This directive is applicable to suborbital projects managed by the Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) and the
research and development (R&D) based projects conducted from or under the auspices of the WFF
Research Range.
Based on the risk posture of suborbital programs, these projects are conducted while knowingly
accepting many risks that an orbital mission may not accept. The Suborbital Program at WFF includes
sounding rockets, scientific balloons, and unpiloted aircraft missions. The Suborbital Program is funded
through research and technologies and as such is managed under NPR 7120.8, NASA Research and
Technology Program and Project Management Requirements.
The WFF Research Range supports projects of many types: orbital launches, sounding rockets,
technology demonstrations, advanced technology flights. In support of the projects, the range has
inherent risks that are mitigated to the maximum extent then accepted as residual risks to the project. As
with the suborbital programs if the project/mission fails to achieve comprehensive success due to one of
the accepted range risks, the anomaly process described in Section 2.0 will be implemented.
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DIRECTIVE NO. 800-PG-8621.0.1 Page 2 of 2
EFFECTIVE DATE: September 10, 2009
EXPIRATION DATE: September 10, 2014
P.3 AUTHORITY
NPR 8621.1, Mishap Reporting, Investigating, and Recordkeeping
GPR 8621.3, Mishap and Close Call Investigation
P.4 REFERENCES
NPR 7120.8, NASA Research and Technology Program and Project Management Requirements
NPR 8621.1, Mishap Reporting, Investigating, and Recordkeeping
P.5 CANCELLATION
N/A
P.6 SAFETY
N/A
P.7 TRAINING
N/A
P.8 RECORDS
Record Title Record Custodian Retention
Program Accepted Risks List Program Office *NRRS 8/107, Temporary.
Destroy/delete between 5 and 30
years after program/project
termination.
Project Plans Program Office *NRRS 8/107
Anomaly Review Board Charter/Appointment
Memorandum
Program Office *NRRS 8/107
Anomaly Review Board Final Report Program Office *NRRS 8/107
Program Office Response Program Office *NRRS 8/107
Program Office conformation of acceptable risk
as the most likely cause of a failure
Program Office *NRRS 8/107
* NRRS – NASA Records Retention Schedule (NPR 1441.1)
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DIRECTIVE NO. 800-PG-8621.0.1 Page 3 of 3
EFFECTIVE DATE: September 10, 2009
EXPIRATION DATE: September 10, 2014
P.9 METRICS
N/A
P.10 DEFINITIONS
a. Accepted Risk – the risk that is understood and agreed to by the program/project, governing PMC,
Mission Directorate, and other customer(s) such that no further specific mitigating action is required.
b. Anomaly - any isolated accident, failure, or event that results in damage to flight hardware or could
cause a significant schedule slip, significant cost growth, inability to meet mission requirements,
and/or inability to transmit or process data.
c. Risk Posture – denotes the amount of risk a program can accept while still meeting NASA program
requirements.
d. Residual Risks – risks that remain after all reasonable mitigation actions have been applied.
P.11 ACRONYMS
AETD
ARB
MIB
PI
PM
PMC
R&D
SSOPD
WFF
Applied Engineering and Technology Directorate
Anomaly Review Board
Mishap Investigation Board
Principal Investigator
Project Manager
Program Management Council
Research and Development
Suborbital and Special Orbital Projects Directorate
Wallops Flight Facility
PROCEDURES
In this document, a requirement is identified by “shall,” a good practice by “should,” permission by
“may” or “can,” expectation by “will,” and descriptive material by “is.”
1.0 Risk
It is the responsibility of each Suborbital Program Office to establish and document the accepted risks
for their Program. These acceptable risks will be the basis for risk acceptance for each of the
missions/projects conducted by the program office except as noted in the individual project/mission
plans. Individual projects within the portfolio may choose to accept more or less risk depending on the
customer being supported. The customer will acknowledge acceptance of these risk via signature on the
project/mission plan.
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EFFECTIVE DATE: September 10, 2009
EXPIRATION DATE: September 10, 2014
For each project conducted by the WFF Research Range the accepted risks shall be documented in the
project plan and updated as required. The customer or principal investigator and the Project Manager
(PM) will show concurrence by signatures on the project plan and on any revisions.
2.0 Appointment of ARB
When a project/mission anomaly takes place due to one or more of the accepted risks occurring, which
causes the project to not obtain at least minimum success requirements, the Program Office Chief will
appoint (by charter memorandum with concurrence from the Director of Suborbital and Special Orbital
Projects Directorate (SSOPD), an independent anomaly review board (ARB). The chair of the ARB will
be from the WFF Applied Engineering and Technology Directorate (AETD). The remainder of the
board members shall be comprised of qualified civil servants and contractors. The board shall consist of
a minimum of three members plus an executive secretary. The executive secretary shall be someone
without an engineering or science (technical) background responsible for scheduling meetings, note
taking, production of the final report, etc. The Program Office Chiefs (appointing officials) are
encouraged to add a board member with little or no experience in the investigation process. This will
allow for more employees to learn about our programs and processes. The Program Office shall provide
support and consultation to the ARB as required.
3.0 ARB Reporting
If the ARB determines that the suspected anomaly was not due to an accepted risk then the normal MIB
process (NPR 8621.1) will be implemented at the earliest possible date.
The ARB interim and final reports will be delivered to Program Office Chief for approval. The final
report shall be delivered approximately 4 weeks from the date of the approved charter. The affected
Program Office shall provide a briefing to the Director of SSOPD which will include the review board
findings, office response, and corrective action(s).
When a Principal Investigator’s (PI) supplied payload/instrument fails to perform to acceptable
standards this is considered a standard accepted risk for the suborbital programs. In this case, the PI will
be tasked to perform the anomaly review and provide a final report to the supporting program office.
The Program Office will review these reports to determine if any action is required by the office.
4.0 Anomaly Notification
When a failure occurs as the result of an accepted risk the following notification chain will be
implemented:
a. Project Manager
b. Program Office Lead
c. Director of SSOPD
d. Safety Office Chief
e. Program Executive
f. Program Scientist
g. Center Deputy Director
h. Center Director
5.0 Investigation Guidelines
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EFFECTIVE DATE: September 10, 2009
EXPIRATION DATE: September 10, 2014
Below are minimum investigation guidelines of the typical/generic things to consider in the
investigation process. These guidelines can be tailored for the specific anomaly.
a. Narrative description of the facts including what, when, and where.
b. Description explaining why the incident occurred including all findings(s) such as proximate
cause(s), root cause(s), contributing factors(s), and the evidence upon which the findings are based.
c. Description of the type of data gathered and evaluated during the investigation.
d. An executive summary that does not contain privileged or proprietary information, material subject
to the Privacy Act, ITAR information, or EAR
e. Conclusions and recommendations to prevent recurrence.
f. A list of advisor(s) signatures demonstrating that he/she has reviewed the mishap report that any
privileged or proprietary information, ITAR information, EAR information, or material subject to
the Privacy Act has been identified and marked as nonreleasable to the public; and that sections that
are releasable to the public are marked releasable and, to the best of his/her knowledge, are ready for
public release.
g. Investigating authority signature demonstrating their approval of the mishap report. (Same person
who assigned the investigation).
h. Minority report from any person, if there is one.
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DIRECTIVE NO. 800-PG-8621.0.1 Page 6 of 6
EFFECTIVE DATE: September 10, 2009
EXPIRATION DATE: September 10, 2014
CHANGE HISTORY LOG
Revision Effective Date Description of Changes
Baseline 9/10/2009 Initial Release
CHECK THE GSFC DIRECTIVES MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AT
http://gdms.gsfc.nasa.gov/gdmsnew/home.jsp TO VERIFY THAT THIS IS THE CORRECT VERSION PRIOR TO USE.
GSFC 3-18 (7/06)