NASA
An independent panel evaluating the safety of NASA’s activities has raised serious questions about the space agency’s plans to test flight software for its Moon mission.
During a meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel on Thursday, one of its members, former NASA flight director Paul Hill, outlined the panel’s concerns after talking to managers for NASA’s first three Artemis missions. These include test flights of the space launch system rocket and Orion spacecraft for Artemis I and subsequently human flights on the Artemis II and III missions.
Hill said the security panel was appalled by the lack of “end-to-end” testing, ranging from launches through the landing of software and hardware used during the mission. Such extensive testing ensures that flight software is compatible with different vehicles and in many different environments, including space launches and drills.
“The panel is particularly concerned about end-to-end integrated testing capability plans, especially for flight software,” Hill said. “There is no end-to-end integrated avionics and software software testing capability. Instead, multiple and separate labs, emulators and simulations are being used to test software subsets.”
The safety panel was also struggling to understand why, apparently, NASA had not learned its lessons from Boeing’s latest failed test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, Hill said. (The Boeing space rocket system is also the primary contractor for the main phase of the rocket).
Prior to the test flight of the Starliner crew capsule in December 2019, Boeing was unable to conduct integrated, end-to-end tests for the mission it was to dock from the International Space Station. Instead of running a software test that covered an approximately 48-hour period from docking to the station by docking, Boeing broke the test into pieces. As a result, the spacecraft was almost lost on two occasions and did not fulfill its primary purpose of reaching the rotation laboratory.
Lessons learned
Hill issued a proprietary report by the NASA Center for Engineering and Safety (NESC), published on September 8, which raised similar concerns about attempting to run software tests at multiple centers and labs.
“The panel members are not clear about their current plan and the processes take advantage of the lessons they have learned,” Hill said. “The NESC report highlights the need to develop as many flight systems as possible for success, with the goal of testing you. Fly the way you train. “
In response to these concerns, a NASA spokesman said the agency would, in fact, test at the final stage – although he acknowledged that it would be carried out at multiple facilities.
“NASA has conducted an integrated end-to-end test for the software, hardware, avionics and integrated systems required for the Artemis mission flight,” said Catherine Humblton. “Using the agency’s sophisticated software development laboratories, teams from SLS, Orion and Exploration Ground Systems use real flight hardware and software, as well as emulators – versions of the software that each team works with to test their code and Integrated System – To support both system-level interface testing and integrated mission testing to ensure software and avionics systems work together. “
After the Starliner crash, he said, NASA’s chief engineer set up an independent review team to evaluate all of Artemis I’s critical flight and ground software software activities. Those recommendations have been phased out in preparation for the next Artemis mission, which could begin flying in late 2021 or 2022.
