Time running short for NASA’s Mars missions. With the Mars launch window quickly approaching, NASA needs to manage time carefully. Coronavirus pandemic placed additional complexity on the mission execution. In addition to the complex mission, NASA now needs to address social distancing measures, the risk of employees getting sick from the deadly virus, and moral impacts across the USA.
The launch window opens July 17th for the MARS 2020 Perseverance mission. One of the already planned 2020 Mars missions has been canceled. The European Space Agency(ESA) pulled the plug on this year’s launch of the exoMars mission, opting to wait another two years.
Space Agencies, like NASA, available launch window lasts less than a month. ESA determined that several open technical issues compounded by additional pressure from COVI19 warranted a delay for the mission. Like ESA, if the rocket with Perseverance isn’t launched and on the way to Mars by August 5, then it isn’t going for another two years…
Because of the immovable deadline imposed by orbital mechanics, NASA has sought to keep progress moving forward on this mission. During the early days of the Coronavirus outbreak in the USA, Jim Bridenstine indicated that NASA would continue to place focus on key missions, but not at the expense of NASA employees or contractors.
Don’t think that Coronavirus should impact NASA and ESA? Think back to NASA’s past missions. In the 1990s NASA took an approach of faster, cheaper, and better. Tight schedules, limited budgets, and limited resources. Although Mars 2020 does not have a tight budget and had a good amount of time for schedule, coronavirus now threatens NASA projects with limited resources. Although NASA didn’t face the coronavirus before, we can look at some unrelated challenges and draw similarities.
Is “faster, cheaper, and better” riskier?
Testing is a key piece of a system defense layer and, if ignored, will degrade. This can manifest as a weakness or risk which potentially leads to mission failure. The approach NASA took in the late 1990s and early 2000s reinforced the challenge of effective project management. Assessing the issues with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s programs to explore Mars from that era resulted in the general conclusion that pressures to conform to the agency’s recent credo of “faster, cheaper, better” ended up compromising ambitious projects.
To meet project timelines, project managers sacrificed needed testing and realistic assessments of the risks of failure. A great example of this was the loss of the Mars Polar Lander mission on Dec. 3, 1999. Although investigators had very little evidence to analyze the loss of the spacecraft, the probable cause for the loss was determined to be the premature shutdown of the spacecraft’s engines.
Instead of the spacecraft being near the ground for engine cutoff, it was more than 100 feet (30.48 m) in the air. The Mars Polar Lander slammed to the surface at 50 miles (80.47 km) an hour instead of having a smooth landing.
Problems with the mission’s software could have prevented the loss of the spacecraft and were easily correctable with a software change. The actual Mars Polar lander was tested this way, but not after a major change was made to the spacecraft. An unrelated wiring problem was discovered and required rework of the spacecraft. After the wiring had been corrected, testing was not redone.
Feedback on the project explained the true root cause. The Mars projects were underfunded. To make up for the funding shortcoming and meet tight timelines, corners were cut resulting in unnecessary risks.
So what did NASA learn from past failures?
With over fifty years of experience in space missions, NASA knows well what works and what doesn’t work. For example, a long list of missions to Mars has failed completely or partially shows how challenging exploring Mars is. Some missions failed from what, in hindsight, would seem like issues that could have been identified early on and prevented. NASA put measures in place to prevent these predictable and preventable issues from impacting missions.
The relationship between complexity, risk, and cost for space missions has been well documented from past spaceflight successes and failures. A good book that touches on these risks is Douglas Hubbard’s The Failure of Risk Management. The book covers an evaluation of the NASA risk framework. Hubbard highlights some very interesting risk relationships related to space missions.
A plot of mission complexity against schedule distribution showed that all the partial or complete failures occur in the bottom third of the distribution indicating a strong correlation. (a partial failure means that the mission was able to continue or complete some original objectives)
The establishment of a ‘‘no-fly zone’’ can be done defining criteria based on the complexity of the project. Sufficient time or money to develop a system was not allocated. In short, when NASA did not allocate sufficient time and or funding to offset the increased complexity there was a much higher likelihood of partial or complete mission failure.
In a review of the failures for these past mission failures, under budget or schedule constraints, projects tended to bypass best practices such as testing. The bypassing of tests and best practices translate into higher risk since the testing could have detected and allowed NASA to correct the issue before it impacted the mission.
Other programs suffer from fewer people and less work, Mars 2020 preservers.
NASA realizes the severity of the Coronavirus. Project management of complex projects requires time, budget and people. Removing people from projects results in less work being done. Removing people from proximity due to COVID-19 helps safety but not project schedules.
For critical missions, like Mars 2020 and NASA-SpaceX Crew Dragon flight, delay poses undesirable results. To keep progress moving forward, NASA shared several safeguards to help protect the team to maintain schedule and safety. An example of the precautions includes many of the team working remotely. For those individuals, using additional office space at KSC so that employees can maintain adequate physical distancing while not actively working on the spacecraft.
“We are going to take care of our people. That’s our first priority.”
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
Progress on some missions slowed, like another top priority for NASA, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Unlike the Mars rover, JWST has a lot of work to do, and at least a year before the planned launch. JWST also does not have a critical launch window date like Mars 2020. If NASA needs to bump JWST, it can. Since NASA implemented remote work for as many of the activities as possible, JWST onsite progress slowed. Onsite testing of the JWST won’t restart until NASA and contractors safely return.
Delays are not new for the JWST. The project kicked off in the 1990s. Since then, the highly complex project keeps sliding both in budget and schedule. For example, in 2014, NASA shared the plan to JWST to launch in 2018, but the complexity of the project put it years behind in the project schedule and way over the original budget. In 2020, the new planned launch date is 2021.
The Mars Mission schedule weathered Coronavirus better. The rover arrived at KSC in February for final launch preparations. The personnel working at KSC have kept the launch preparations on track. “We are green across the board in all aspects of the mission,” Watzin said. Recent work has included installing the Mars Helicopter. The small helicopter provides scientists new ways of seeing Mars.
Flying on Mars with martian drones.
The Mars Helicopter is a robotic helicopter testing the technology to improve the scouting range on Mars. The Helicopter data collected improves the planning of the best driving route for Perseverance. The Helicopter’s mission includes multiple test flights. Expect to see very short hops initially. The drone’s ability to navigate the Martian atmosphere stems from the use of autonomous control programming. The drone communicates with the Perseverance rover directly after each landing.
Although drones technology matured on Earth, flying on Mars presents unique challenges. Each test flight provides valuable insight on the planet Mars as well as learning how to fly on Mars. The atmospheric air pressures of Mars measures about 1/100th of Earth. With less air pressure, Engineers needed to rethink designs of terrestrial Earth-based helicopters and adapt to Mars. Future helicopters designs benefit from the trailblazing done by the Mars 2020 mission.
NASA plans to stun the world this summer.
“What we are going to do this summer will absolutely stun the world.”
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine shared earlier in April
Besides being a top priority for NASA’s science program, Mars 2020 has emerged as a major priority for the agency overall. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has on several occasions identified it and the upcoming crewed test flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft as the two key programs for the agency in the next few months.
Bridenstine implying that 2020 expectations for launches are mounting. The SpaceX launch of astronauts to the International Space Station received a lot of media attention. Mars 2020 launch also promises to be exciting.
About The Author
Bill D’Zio
Co-Founder at WestEastSpace.com
Bill founded WestEastSpace.com after returning to China in 2019 to be supportive of his wife’s career. Moving to China meant leaving the US rocket/launch industry behind, as the USA and China don’t see eye to eye on cooperation in space. Bill has an engineering degree and is an experienced leader of international cross-functional teams with experience in evaluating, optimizing and awarding sub-contracts for complex systems. Bill has worked with ASME Components, Instrumentation and Controls (I&C) for use in launch vehicles, satellites, aerospace nuclear, and industrial applications.
Bill provides consulting services for engineering, supply chain, and project management.
