3332. Generic Space Shuttle Program (SSP) Flight Feasibility Assessment Techniques
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Paper
Abstract
The SSP at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)/Johnson Space Center (JSC) employs these Generic Flight Feasibility Assessment Techniques (FFAT) presented in this paper. The FFAT results are used for flight baseline, ?what-if?/?trade-off? flight analysis, and flight planning of the Shuttle manifest. The FFAT are early analysis tools in the SSP. These early analysis results are refined using NASA Flight Ops simulators. The FFAT process starts by selecting a flight from the SSP Flight Assignment Working Group (FAWG) Planning Manifest referred to as Flight Under Design (FUD). This flight would have an Orbiting Vehicle assignment (OV-103 Discovery, or OV-104 Atlantis, or OV-105 Endeavour). It would also have a Payload Bay (PLB) manifested complement of payloads and a projected Launch Date. A historically flown Shuttle mission is selected from the SSP database. It is referred to as Reference Flight (RF). The RF mission parameters are very similar to the FUD parameters. The RF Main Engine Cut-Off (MECO) Mass Lift Capability is compared to the FUD flight MECO Mass requirements in order to determine if the flight can lift such Mass requirements. In effect, the Ascent Performance Margin (APM) in this comparison must be positive and meeting/exceeding SSP Manager?s Reserve Policy value. All applicable flight Ascent Performance Partials (APP) are considered in this comparison for determining the APM.
