scope:

Description of Driving Event:

On the Constellation Program contract for reusable solid rockets, the KSC ground operations supplied ground process knowledge input to the design of the First Stage systems. During the course of the design process, KSC Ground Ops would propose processing enhancements which would affect operational sequencing, and in turn, drive vehicle configuration changes. Some of the suggestions made by the GOP were determined to be out of scope of the current contract. Conversely, some design changes made by the team were studied at length and implemented without concerns for in/out of scope or potential KSC impacts.

During design reviews, problems were discovered that might have been avoided if the KSC tasks or design changes had been included as requested. By the time the KSC changes were acknowledged it was very difficult and costly to incorporate the design solutions.