Risk Assessment on International Space Station

One of the most challenging aspects of a project is meeting requirements and milestones for schedule, cost, and scope. As the chosen contractor for the International Space Station (ISS), which can be viewed as one of the largest and complex project of our time, an aggressive risk analysis must be implemented. The ISS is an ongoing mission that incorporates changing technological advances along with multiple designs of hardware, software and structural systems. The project design, development and construction started in the year of 1980, with operations continuing until 2016 and beyond (Bacon, J. Boyle, J., and Stockman, B. 1982. Page 3). The complexity, testing and verification process, length, changes in regulation and personnel, politics, international relationships, and government funding, presents a mind boggling amount of risk to consider for the project. Because of the many factors involved with this intense and world changing project, the cost of failure is extremely high. This project differs from any ordinary project; it gives us space exploration and combines our countries together. It is the “largest single international engineering project in history and has direct participants of 16 nations, 88 launches and 160 space walks” (Jenkins, M. 2000. Page 3). NASA depends heavily on the contractors it chooses and the services range from the technical support of the station’s integrations to the vehicle operations for space flights. “The contractors are the source of data and expertise that are critical in ensuring mission safety and success. Their timely participation is the essential to meeting mission schedules” (Safety Task Force. 2007. Page 1). High level risk management must be in place and must meet all procedures and guidelines set out by NASA, the Safety Task force, Governments, International Partners and all contractors involved. “Several authors describe that the nature of risk management and the challenges generated by its theoretical and...