LRI Flight Program
Strategies to put in place at the beginning of the flight development:
- Begin to End: Cohesive, monolithic team from beginning to end. Avoid
transitions as far as possible.
- Testing: In the absence of NASA S-Qual paperwork and large amounts of
analysis time, testing takes centerplace in the Quality Assurance (QA)
process. Testing milestones also serve as a tracking mechanism in the
Design, Development & testing cycle (DD&T).
- Standards: Use S-Qual standards and avoid/ minimize paperwork. Replaced
by testing and database systems
- Database & Information Tools to unify the project: This will be a fast paced, concurrent program. To maintain consistency and have administrative effectiveness, we will use databases and information tools that will track the schedule, finances and technology.
- REC vs Inc.: The issue is to decide between making the flight development a REC project or to incorporate to do that. The issues are: employee incentives for high performance, employee stake in the success of the mission, purchasing & hiring processes, flexibility to market and generate money (e.g. merchandising), long term survival of the team, complete autonomy, legal hassles.
- 2 site case: The issue is wether or not to have a second site for development. Given that: Red has to stay in Pittsburgh and that Red is a central entity in this project, (plus issues of Robotics technology, early business incentives) Pittsburgh has to be the primary center for development. Inappropriate weather for year round testing, major customers based elsewhere, major partners (ISE, aerospace) situated elsewhere, timezone to west-coast business/ vendors, links to the entertainment world - These factors call for a second site possibly located in San Diego or nearby area. The decision will be made after a cost benefit analysis.
- Direct Customer Access: Eventhough LunaCorp is directly responsible to the customers, the flight team needs direct access to customer reps whose word can be taken to be law in satisfying the customers. Such interaction is necessary to minimize communication delay and cost, keeping a compact heirarchy on both ends.
- Primary Contractors as Team Members: Due to tight timeline and cost issues, it is essential to incorporate the primary contractor representatives as the team members who will then be responsible to deliver the sub-systems necessary to make the mission a success. This contrasts interface control documents which consume resources and call for a blind working approach.
The following lists outline the flight team and its responsibilities. The objectives are to have a compact team with each person having complete freedom within the cinfines of the requirements, standards and quaility:
- Product: Ground Software, Ops + terrrestrial infrastructure, Terrestrial Analog*/2, data delivery
- Robotics: Computing, Flight Software, Electronics + Sensors, Comm, Terrestrial Analog*/2,
- Space: Launch-Landing-Structure, Thermal, Power, Materials,
- Marketing Manager: Marketing, media image, proposals, new customers,
negotiation, Business
- Program Manager: Budget, Scheduling and tracking, Standards + QA*, reliability*, testing*, Integration, Fabrication
The following glossary describes the various positions defined above:
- General responsibilities of the Top Four: Interfacing and meshing of the sub-systems into a unified whole (from the mundane data interfaces to matching performance, to mass-power-volume budgets, ...)
- Product: Interfaces with the customer reps and is responsible for ensuring the right data is generated & transmitted from the rover to the customer, display, public interfaces.
- Robotics: Responsible for the developing the relevant robotics technologies to flight - as listed above. Includes modeling the system to ensure performance on the Moon and the necessary assurances.
- Space: Responsible for all space issues. Making sure that the rovers roll off, intact to the lunar surface, survive & operate in the lunar environment for the duration and supply sufficeint power to the rovers.
- Program Manager: Overall planning, budgets & tracking, sets and ensures standards (Quality Assurance - reliability), testing program, Integration and Fabrication
- Business: legal, documentation, facilities, support
May 31, 1996, LRI