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Space Station Engineering Design Issues Report of a Workshop (1989) / Chapter Skim
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2 General Design Issues
Pages 15-18

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From page 15...
... studies currently under way, but it is reluctant to rely on the assurances that onboard redundancy will be sufficient to handle any and all possible life-threatening malfunctions. The earlier NRC Committee on Space Station believed that NASA should establish a mandatory requirement for a crew emergency rescue vehicle and should consider its use, on a man-rated expendable launch vehicle, as a backup means of manned access to the Space Stations (Resort of the Committee on the SDace Station of the National Research Council, p.
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From page 16...
... Furthermore, the degree to which flight equipment will be duplicated for checkout, verification, spares purposes, and so forth, is only vaguely defined in the current Space Station program plans, as briefed to the committee. A verification strategy, involving ground checkout of flight hardware, simulation, dedicated ground test hardware, and on-orbit verification is sorely needed and must be specified.
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From page 17...
... Some of the crucial issues involve joint crew activities by Shuttle and Space Station astronauts, the nature of the coupled dynamic behavior during assembly, appropriate docking/berthing strategies, and assembly sequence resiliency in an environment of Shuttle mass margin uncertainty. SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT While the committee believes NASA is to be commended for recognizing the criticality of software and data management to the Space Station program and for taking a proactive approach to addressing software issues through investment in a program-wide Software Support Environment and Technical and Management Information System, it is concerned that the Software Support Environment as mandated may be relatively inflexible and restrictive for some program purposes, such as real-time dynamic systems modeling.
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From page 18...
... are not yet being developed. The existence of such alternative design possibilities could reduce program risk or help cover projected shortfalls.
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Key Terms

  • station program
  • software support
  • shuttle payload
  • assembly flights
  • emergency rescue

  • station assembly
  • station design
  • rescue vehicle
  • crew emergency
  • support environment

  • individual assembly
  • software provisions
  • sdace station
  • structural dynamicists
  • current schedule

  • crew activities
  • software environment
  • studies currently
  • space stations
  • believes nasa

  • program purposes
  • onboard redundancy
  • coupled dynamic
  • committee awaits
  • earlier nrc

  • appears incompatible
  • extravehicular activity
  • margin uncertainty
  • sequence resiliency
  • backup means


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