NASA Engineering and Safety Center

One of the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board was that NASA establish a technologically strong, objective organization whose goal was to reduce the likelihood of recurrence of such failures through independent assessment of technical risks. To meet this objective, the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) was established in July 2003 as a distributed organization with headquarters at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and members at each NASA center. It is funded by the Office of the Chief Engineer, and thus not beholden to any one project or center.

NESC performs in-depth independent assessments of NASA's most difficult technical problems. The organization has technical discipline teams in many space system functional areas, including mechanical systems, electrical power, and software, among others. It has performed numerous ad hoc analytical and experimental investigations for NASA projects.

The Aerospace Corporation has been a trusted partner of NESC since its inception. NESC's commitment to excellence and impartiality parallels that of Aerospace, making for a natural and sustaining partnership. The following contributions are among the more than 35 made by Aerospace in a wide range of areas.

• Performed an independent assessment on a portion of the shuttle's external tank Thermal Protection System foam that remained unchanged after post-Columbia design modifications (deemed "use-as-is"). Determined that it could not be certified to NASA requirements. A piece of this foam subsequently dislodged on the next shuttle mission.
• Contributed to a nondestructive evaluation of composite overwrapped pressure vessels and Thermal Protection System foam.
• Contributed to an anomaly investigation into test failures of NASA pyrotechnic valves, including review of NASA test data and independent performance modeling.
• Integrated data from NASA, DOD, and industry to recommended approaches to optimize the nation's rocket test facilities for the Constellation program's mission to the moon and eventually Mars.
• Provided assessment of recurring anomalies on the space shuttle and the International Space Station.
• Developed guidelines for "Design Development Test and Evaluation (DDT&E) Considerations for Robust and Reliable Human Rated Spacecraft Systems," commissioned by the Astronaut Office at NASA Johnson Space Center.

For their significant contributions to the latter two studies conducted by NASA-wide teams, Aerospace participants have received NESC Group Achievement Awards.

—Allan R. Cohen

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