MARS CLIMATE ORBITER MISSION

PROJECT MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY

BY:

FRANCISCO CEBALLOS

NELSON ROSARIO

BILLY GUERRERO

RICARDO CABRAL

• Background

- Why the interest in Mars?

- Mars missions under Faster, Better, Cheaper (FBC) approach.

- Account of the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) failure.

• Project Management Analysis

- Human Resource

MCO’s personnel characteristics and lessons learned.

- Communication

MCO’s communication deficiencies and lessons learned.

- Quality

MCO’s quality issues and lessons learned.

- Risk

MCO’s risk management errors and lessons learned.

• Conclusions

• Questions

Outline

Why Mars?

MISSION STATISTICS

FASTER BETTER CHEAPER (FBC)

Faster Better Cheaper

Internal and

external pressures

Much emphasis on few missions

Shrinking budget

Utilizing new technology

Creating smaller spacecraft and more frequent

missions

Accepting prudent risk where warranted by

return

Reducing cycle time by eliminating inefficient

and redundant processes

Utilizing proven engineering and

management practices to maximize success

• Lockheed Martin Astronautic was the main contractor and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

was the administrator of all these missions.

• Total cost of the Mars missions under FBC of $921.6 Millions.

• Under FBC 3 out off 6 Mars missions failed.

• Study Mars climate

• Monitor daily weather and atmospheric conditions

• Record changes on Mars surface

• Look for evidence of past climate changes

• Relay communications between MPL and Earth

• Expected to operate for 5 years (1999-2004)

MCO Mission Objectives

• At Cape Canaveral, FL on December 11th, 1998

• Delta II Lite Launch Vehicle

• Launch sequence lasted 42 minutes

• Hoffman transfer to Mars

• Earth-Mars launch window consideredevery 2 years

MCO Launch

• 416 million miles over 9 months

• 4 Trajectory Correction Maneuvers

• Anomalies in trajectory caughtbut dismissed

MCO Cruise

• Measures thruster performance

• Logs thruster firing events on file

• Installed both in ground & spacecraft

• Wrong unit in log file

• Trajectory modeling from file

• Corrections issued based on this modeling

• Thrusters fired 4.45 times shorter

“Small Forces” Software

Planned trajectory

Actual trajectory

CriticalAltitude

Human Resource

Management

Develop Human

Resource Plan

Acquire Project Team

Develop Project Team

Manage Project Team

Develop Human Resource Plan

• The PM is responsible of making sure the team members have the appropriate training according to the task they will be performing.

• The PM must clearly identify the roles and responsibilities of the team.

Acquire project team• The PM must evaluate the risk of resources becoming

unavailable.

Training

• The Incident, Surprise, Anomaly (ISA) procedure.

• The ground software development process.

• The Mission Operations Software Interface Specification (SIS).

• The MCO attitude control system and related subsystem parameters.

• The Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM) -5.

Staffing

• The Mars Surveyor Operations Project (MSOP) was running 3 missions simultaneously (MGS, MCO, MPL).

• The absence of a mission assurance manager.

• Absence of mission science personnel in the management process.

Roles and responsibilities

• Hesitancy and wavering was perceived on the people attempting to answer these questions:

Who is in charge? Who is the Mission Manager?

• The lack of an adequate systems engineering function.

Lessons Learned

• The team should be provided with proper training and detailed information regarding systems which may have a high impact on the well behavioral of the project.

• The project manager should identify or provide backup personnel that could be available to serve in some of the critical roles when needed.

• The human resource department should provide a staff with well defined roles and responsibilities.

Communication Management

Distribute Information

IdentifyStakeholders

Report Performance

Plan Communications

MangeStakeholderExpectations

Communications ManagementTHE PROBLEM START IN FBC

Communications ManagementInterfaces and Relationships

Communications ManagementNASA- JPL RELATIONSHIP

Communications ManagementNASA- JPL RELATIONSHIP

Absence of a single interface resulted in multiple inputs to the JPL Mars Program

Input 1

Input 2

Input 3

Input 3

Input 2

Input 1

Communications ManagementJPL-LMA RELATIONSHIP

RISK

Communications Management• COMMUNICATION BARRIERS

Communications ManagementLESSONS LEARNED

• Senior management must be receptive to communications of problems and risks.

• A dedicated single interface at NASA Headquarters for the Mars Program is essential.

• Contractor responsibilities must include formal notification to the customer of project risk and deviations.

• Increase the amount of formal and informal face-to-face communications with all team elements and especially for those elements that have critical interfaces.

Quality Management

Plan Quality

Perform Quality

Assurance

Perform Quality Control

• Assess whether correct processes are being followed usingmeasurements from QC

• Determine if organizational & project processes, policies and procedures are being followed

Perform Quality Assurance Process

• Measure quality of deliverables

• Validate deliverables

Perform Quality Control Process

Perform Quality Assurance• Verification & Validation (V&V) procedures not followed

• No user testing of the code

• Poor Code review process

• Non-conformance with SIS

• Increasingly frequent anomalous events disregarded

Issue TrackingSummary

Perform Quality Control

• Insufficient rigor interface control process

•Global issue-tracking database not usedfor anomalies

• Issues left unresolved

•Need to improve quality not identified

Identification

Review

Solve

Lessons Learned

Quality Lessons Learned

• Perform thorough code review

• Metrification

• Develop comprehensive mission requirements down to subsystem level

• Iteratively verify mission requirements conformance

Risk

Management

Identify

Risk

Perform

Qualitative Risk

Analysis

Plan Risk

Management

Perform

Qualitative Risk

Analysis

Plan

Risk

Response

Monitor

And

Control Risk

Risk Management Overview

• Identify uncertainty, positive and negative.

• It’s comprised of six sequential processes: Plan Risk Management, Identify Risks,

Perform Qualitative Risks Analysis, Perform Quantitative Risks Analysis, Plan Risk

Responses and Monitor and Control Risks.

• Starts at initiation and finish with project closure.

• It’s iterative, ones planned, should be reassessed and control.

• Could impact costs, schedule, scope, quality, customer’s satisfaction and stakeholders

interests.

• When it’s integrated in a project prevents unnecessary threats and promote wanted

opportunities.

• Unmitigated risks has an owner with a clear contingency plan, launch depending on

risk triggers.

Risk Management Failures

• No a sound Risk Management plan in place.

• FBC didn’t describe clearly what were prudent risks.

• Each project manager interpreted risks differently under FBC policy.

• MCO was significantly underfunded compared to other comparable missions.

• System engineering didn’t play its rolling in help in risks identification and management.

• Project managers put more emphasis on lower cost and

schedule, and more ambitious scope, while risks increase

was not considered.

• No proper procedure to implement TCM-5 as an

emergency plan.

Lessons Learned

• Risks caused by deviation from project management principle shouldn’t be allow.

• All team members should know what is acceptable risks.

• All mission should perform the six processes of risk management.

• In all project meetings and reviews risks mitigation plan should be reported and reassessed.

Success

Cost

Time

Risk

Scope

• Risk management a fourth dimension of project management.

• Earn value management could be applied to risk management.

• All unmitigated risks should have a risk owner and a clear

contingency plan.

C O N C L U S I O N S

• "Faster, better, cheaper" missions place too much emphasis on cost andschedule reduction and too little on management, oversight, leadership andevaluating risk.

• Key positions in the staff and well trained personnel are critical points thatany PM must not sacrifice because of reducing cost strategies.

• A routine forum should be established for informal communication between allteam members at the same time so everyone can hear what is happening.

• The absence of a sound Risk Management Plan prevented that the missioncould overcome any important threat, reducing significantly its chances forsuccess.

• A comprehensive contingency plan to execute TCM-5 could have increasedthe probability of success of the mission.

QUESTIONS

THANK YOU !!