Critical Knowledge Insight

Astronaut training is critically important to the success and safety of missions.

Involving logistics engineers in development and operations can help save a project time and budget.

Programs with international partnerships benefit from having a process framework in place to help with timing of key programmatic decisions, engineering standards, interfaces, software and many other details that contribute to program success.

Finishing as much work as possible early on is one of the keys to keeping a project on schedule.

Some principles learned from human spaceflight can be transportable to help people in extreme remote situations on Earth.

The complexity of the recovery operations for the Orion spacecraft created useful lessons on partnerships between two government agencies.

Capturing and transferring knowledge in a program is critical.

A project culture open to discussing tough questions can help with mission success.

High-level goals were established to allow flexibility and innovation in the design of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS).