scope:

Purpose

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) policy for establishing requirements to protect the health and safety of crew and for providing health and medical programs for crewmembers during all phases of space flight, is authorized by NPD 1000.3, The NASA Organization, and NPD 8900.5, NASA Health and Medical Policy for Human Space Exploration. NPD 8900.1, Medical Operations Responsibilities in Support of Human Space Flight Programs, and NPD 8900.3, Astronaut Medical and Dental Observation Study and Care Program, authorize the specific provision of health and medical programs for crewmembers. NASA's policy is to establish requirements for providing a healthy and safe environment for crewmembers and to provide health and medical programs for crewmembers during all phases of space flight. Standards are established to optimize crew health and performance, thus contributing to overall mission success, and to prevent negative long-term health consequences related to space flight. In this Standard, the Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer (OCHMO) establishes NASA's space flight crew health requirements for the pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight phases of human space flight.

Human-system standards are established to guide and focus the development of the crew health requirements as a means of protecting space-faring crews. The requirements presented in this Standard are intended to complement the overall set of human standards for space flight, which also includes NASA-STD-3001, Volume 2: Human Factors, Habitability and Environmental Health; OCHMO 80771201MED NASA Medical Standard for Crewmembers; and current medical standards of clinical practice. Combined, these standards provide Agency technical requirements for an appropriate environment for human habitation, certification of human participants, the necessary level of medical care, and risk-mitigation strategies against the deleterious effects of space flight. The requirement described in this document include levels of care, permissible exposure limits, fitness-for-duty criteria, and permissible outcome limits as a means of defining successful operating criteria for the human system. These requirements help ensure mission completion, limit morbidity, and reduce the risk of mortality during space flight missions. Appendix A in this Standard presents an overview document map.

All requirements are based on the best available scientific and clinical evidence, as well as operational experience from Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle, Shuttle/Mir (Russian Space Station), and International Space Station (ISS) missions. Requirements are periodically and regularly reviewed, especially as the concept of operations and mission parameters for a program become defined, and may be updated as new evidence emerges.

A Crew Health Concept of Operations document is developed by the Space and Clinical Operations Division at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) for each space flight program and coordinated with the appropriate Program Manager for concurrence. Appendix B in this Standard presents an example Crew Health Concept of Operations outline.

Following the development of the Crew Health Concept of Operations, a Medical Operations Requirements Document (MORD) is developed by the JSC Space and Clinical Operations Division for each program. The MORD details the medical requirements for the program and is consistent with the overall medical concept outlined in the Crew Health Concept document. Appendix C in this Standard presents an example outline of a MORD.