STRUCTURED METHODS FOR IDENTIFYING AND CORRECTING POTENTIAL HUMAN ERRORS IN SPACE OPERATIONS

Human performance plays a significant role in the development and oper ation of any complex system, and human errors are significant contribu tors to degraded performance, incidents, and accidents for technologie s as diverse as medical systems, commercial aircraft, offshore oil pla tforms, nuclear power plants, and space systems. To date, serious acci dents attributed to human error have fortunately been rare in space op erations. However, as flight rates go up and the duration of space mis sions increases, the accident rate could increase unless proactive act ion is taken to identify and correct potential human errors in space o perations. The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) has developed and applied structured methods of human error a nalysis to identify potential human errors, assess their effects on sy stem performance, and develop strategies to prevent the errors or miti gate their consequences. These methods are being applied in NASA-spons ored programs to the domain of commercial aviation, focusing on airpla ne maintenance and air traffic management. The application of human er ror analysis to space operations could contribute to minimize the risk s associated with human error in the design and operation of future sp ace systems. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.