September 1979
From The Space Library
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced that the United States and Japan had formally agreed to extend their research and development cooperation into nonenergy fields. A meeting in Tokyo September 20-21 had issued a U.S.-Japan joint communique recalling summit talks in May between President Carter and Prime Minister Ohira on cooperative efforts in basic and applied research; working groups at the September meeting had looked at possible joint projects in areas such as environment, health, and outer space development. Further meetings would be held, the next in Washington. (Executive Office of the President release, no date)
NASA announced that a special staff of consultants appointed in May 1979 to assess Shuttle management had submitted its report to Deputy Administrator Dr. Alan M. Lovelace. The report contained eight major conclusions (and comments).
1) When the Shuttle program began, NASA managers took an economical approach to space transportation. Subsequent budgets challenged managers to bring in a difficult technical program with limited funds.
(NASA originally envisioned a $5.15 billion program, predicting first manned orbital flight in 1978.)
2) Shuttle management had achieved "a commendable level of accomplishment... considering fiscal constraints placed upon the program since its inception." (Though this report necessarily focused on deficiencies, it noted that Shuttle-program personnel had individually and collectively achieved a great deal in a large and very complex program,)
3) Shuttle management, in an effort to proceed toward completion even under funding limitations, had set up work schedules demanding more performance than could be delivered.
(This approach had resulted in deferment of some of the planned work each year, as funds required exceeded those available. When critical new work became necessary within a fiscal year, as technical problems came up, even more scheduled work had to be deferred. This resulted in continual planning adjustments that precluded establishment of a stable baseline and led to program inefficiency.
(Example: subcontractor work increased or decreased repeatedly as funding changed in critical areas such as tile manufacturing. Program changes and associated up-and-down expenditure rates had led to termination of experienced contractor and subcontractor personnel, who became unavailable later because of aerospace industry demand. The subsequent employment of inexperienced personnel reduced overall efficiency. The report called this a major cause for concern, especially in the production phase of the program, also, costs due to delays in solving technical problems had increased.)
4) Long-range planning and status reporting were lacking: emphasis was on the current fiscal year with only secondary attention to work remaining to be done. Near-term planning took so much attention that long-term impact of deferred work was not integrated into the budgets.
(Effective long-range planning requires clear understanding of what has been accomplished, plus accurate prediction of remaining work. Shuttle management faced budgets showing unrealistic costs of its goals, with no effective status-reporting system. Most program planning consisted of constant near-term replanning to count up expenditures in a timely manner, although measuring the work achieved through these expenditures and estimating work still needed were weak. Management tools lacking in some major Shuttle contracts, such as cost reporting integrated with work measurement, were useful but did not provide an automatic solution.
(The only available means of assessing even the partial funding requirements of the Shuttle was an agency-wide budget plan called POP [program operating plan] inadequate for program control: it appeared only twice a year and contained little pertinent data between July and March. NASA needed a reliable way-lending itself to independent evaluation-to know program baseline and status, with realistic cost and schedule projections.
Management must overcome the cumulative impact of previous constraints and pressures, while making allowance for the need to rely on contractor input.)
5) The Shuttle organization functioned well from a technical standpoint but not in the areas of schedule and budget. Organization needed strengthening, and two-way communications needed improvement.
(The original concept of Shuttle organization was a Level 1 program director at NASA Headquarters, a Level 2 [integration] program manager at JSC, and Level 3 separate program offices at the various centers: JSC for the orbiter; MSFC for the main engine, external tank, and solid-fuel rocket booster; and KSC for checkout and launch. Prime contractor support to project offices would be Level 4. Time had altered the concept: the Headquarters Level 1 associate administrator had become the de facto program director, who required the directors of JSC, MSFC, and KSC to take more part in activities reporting to them; responsibility for funding shifted from Level 2 to Level 1. This seemed a feasible arrangement, but the report said "none of the management levels in Rockwell and NASA had a good grasp" of undone work and other items needing completion before shipping Columbia to KSC. Investigators said Level l "broad and detailed involvement" with technicalities meant less time for cost and schedule. NASA needed cost awareness "independent of contractor input" and sensitivity to "lower-level cost trends.")
6) Schedule changes were no longer a valid way to cope with reduced program or funds; fixed delivery schedules and milestones in the initial operating program not yet achieved required a new management approach.
(Work schedules and budgets must allow for modifications required after the first few Shuttle flights. Users must recognize that initial operations would include development; NASA should make Shuttle users aware of realistic performance and schedule commitments, with priority to successful completion of development.)
7) Transition to the operational phase remained to be worked out; management should ensure that current organization alignments for Shuttle operations are appropriate. The NASA/DOD interface needed clarification.
(NASA Headquarters managed program operations, with operations offices at JSC, MSFC, and KSC; cooperation between the operations and program offices was evident, but transition from development to operations would need work. Since needs and plans of the DOD user community would affect NASA planning and budget, management to forestall problems should maintain "high-level near-term understanding" of DOD plans.)
8) The potential was high for unexpected technical problems, schedule slips, and cost growth. All program planning should include appropriate reserves. (Although the report noted that some parts of a total management-control and information system were in place and functioning well, significant potential for problems would remain until deficiencies cited in the report were corrected.)
(Shuttle Program Management Assessment rept, Sept 12/79 [issued to press Oct 18/79], Hist Ofc rls; NASA note to editors NE79-20; JSC Roundup, Sept 21/79. 1)
NASA reported that 28-year employee Dr. James J. Kramer, Headquarters associate administrator for aeronautics and space technology, would retire September 30. In 1951 he had gone to work for the NASA Lewis center where he had managed the quiet-engine project and the 260-inch solid-rocket project and was an aeronautical research scientist. He was manager of the Headquarters refan program office 1971-1973 and directed many Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST) activities before becoming associate administrator in October 1977. (NASA Release 79-123)
The Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) Newsreview reported that a NASA-USAF pilotless research vehicle called HiMAT (highly maneuverable aircraft technology) made its first flight at the Edwards Air Force Base test center. Purpose of the HiMAT program was to improve maneuverability of U.S. fighter craft at transonic speeds (700-780 mph) and in air-to-air combat. No other remotely piloted vehicle or aircraft had the design features used on HiMAT, which would be incorporated into future USAF vehicles if successful: winglets (airfoils at the end of each wing) and unique close-coupled canards (small winglike surfaces located close to the main wings) to reduce air drag, and aeroelastic tailoring that originated in the early 1970s using the directional properties of graphite composites in the wings and canards (representing about 25% of HiMAT's total weight) to control deformations under aerodynamic loads. The first flight was to test vehicle aerodynamics during separation from the carrier and during approach and landing. Taken to an altitude of 45,000 feet under the right wing of a B-52, HiMAT flew for 22 minutes under control of a NASA research pilot on the ground before landing on skids at a dry lakebed. HiMAT was built by Rockwell International's North American Aircraft Division under contract to DFRC, using concepts from the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory. (AFSC Newsreview, Sept 79, 6)
FBIS continued its reports on the experiences of cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Ryumin during their 175 days aboard Salyut 6. At a Kremlin ceremony September 8, General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev conferred the titles of heroes of the Soviet Union and the orders of Lenin and Gold Star; Lyakhov also received the title "Pilot Cosmonaut of the USSR." A September 10 report said that they told a press conference that the most important thing about their flight was not the duration but the volume and diversity of the research; they also said they looked forward to future "lengthy expeditions." Dr. Konstantin Feoktistov told Soviet and foreign journalists of plans for an investigation of Salyut 6, which had been in orbit for two years; future use would depend on results of a check of on-board systems (which would take several months). A postflight talk with Feoktistov and A.S. Yeliseyev reported that the big design difference in Salyut 6 was the change to two docking units plus a new propulsion system, which made the supply service possible and enabled successive crews to occupy the station: "in practical terms, we were limited only by the life of those systems... impossible to replace in flight," Yeliseyev noted.
Salyut 6 saw 17 dockings and 6 refuelings and produced 6 times as much work as previous stations; about 80 flight corrections were performed, and 3 space walks were made. Fourteen cosmonauts had spent more than a year on the station. Without extensive repair and maintenance, "the station would be already defunct," Feoktistov said. Breakdowns that did not affect the main system were the videotape recorder, some control consoles, and communications equipment that had stopped working. Access to items that had been used on the station had proved important: a harmful-contaminants filter returned from the station exhibited corrosion, and the experts could have spent a long time looking for the answer without having the actual filter to work with. (FBIS, Tass in English, Moscow Dom Svc, Aug 23/79-Sept 5/79)
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