Shuttle crash investigators call for management, systems reforms

Shuttle crash investigators call for management, systems reforms

• By Wilson P. Dizard III
• Aug 26, 2003

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board today recommended management changes and technical fixes to overhaul both NASA's culture and shuttle systems.

The board has been evaluating the deadly Feb. 1 accident for about seven months and tracked down dozens of organizational and technical factors that lead to the disaster [see story].

Among the problem factors were cultural traits and organizational practices that led to poor engineering practices, including the failure 'to understand why systems were not performing in accordance with requirements,' said the report released this morning.

The board's 29 specific recommendations, some of which the board said should be adopted before the next shuttle flight, included several IT items:

Create new physics-based computer models to evaluate the effect of debris strikes on the shuttle's skin

Improve the imaging systems used to monitor the shuttle, including the regular capture of additional vehicle images by the National Imaging and Mapping Agency

Redesign the shuttle's Modular Auxiliary Data System to improve monitoring of the vehicle's flight status

Create an independent Technical Engineering Authority to develop, maintain and enforce engineering standards, including hazard-reporting systems

Recertify materials and subsystems that support or are aboard the shuttle.

The board concluded that the shuttle is not inherently unsafe and should return to flight.

It cautioned, however, that 'unless the technical, organizational and cultural recommendations made in this report are implemented, little will have been accomplished to lessen the chance that another accident will follow.'