Jan 30 2002
From The Space Library
GAO released a report examining NASA’s established mechanisms for learning lessons from past failures. The report, “NASA: Better Mechanisms for Sharing Lessons Learned,” noted that NASA’s investigations of its past failures and its evaluations of its programs had led it to establish various mechanisms to ensure that NASA’s personnel had learned from past successes and failures and had applied their knowledge to future programs and projects. These mechanisms included a Web-based database of lessons learned, program reviews, and the development of a business strategy called knowledge management. However, GAO’s report also noted that, according to interviews with NASA managers, NASA’s established policies, procedures, and systems were not facilitating the use of lessons learned. GAO indicated that this was largely because managers faced challenges, such as lack of time to note, submit, and share lessons learned, and cultural barriers, such as reluctance to discuss mistakes for fear of their colleagues’ disapproval. Among the report’s main recommendations were that NASA develop a strong managerial commitment to sharing knowledge and create technological systems capable of facilitating access to this information. (U.S. General Accounting Office, “NASA: Better Mechanisms Needed for Sharing Lessons Learned” (report no. GAO-02-1 95, Washington, DC, January 2002), http://www.gao.gov/new. items/d02195.pdf (accessed 31 July 2002).
NASA’s Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) reentered Earth’s atmosphere nearly 10 years after its launch on 7 July 1992. NASA had initially planned for the spacecraft to operate for only three years but had extended the EUVE’s scientific mission twice, ending operations on 26 January 2001. The EUVE did not have an on-board propulsion system, and NASA scientists had not designed it to survive reentry intact. Thus, in February 2001, mission engineers had left the spacecraft in a decaying orbit, so that it would destruct upon reentering Earth’s atmosphere. The EUVE, the first astrophysics mission to explore the extreme ultraviolet spectrum (the energy range between 70 and 760 Å), had examined nearly 1,000 sources near Earth, including three-dozen objects outside of the Milky Way Galaxy. (NASA, “Aging NASA Spacecraft To Reenter Earth’s Atmosphere,” news release 02-16, 29 January 2002; NASA, “EUVE Spacecraft Re-enters Earth’s Atmosphere,” news release 02-19, 31 January 2002; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, “EUVE Guest Observer Facility~ The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer Mission,” http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/euve/euvegof.html (accessed 30 July 2002).
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