JET PROPULSION LAB CASE

ASSIGNMENT

Group 19:
Venkattarajesh | Saivenkateswar | Kailash
Date: 03, September 2021
 Q1: What would be your suggestion to the project manager on the Launching of Space flight?
Should he give an order to fire or not? Justify.
Critical Issues that emerged after Critical Events Benefits of delaying the launch of Mars Mission
Readiness Review

• BMSA Instruments:
• Risks were reduced to 3 but the likelihood was still 3 leading to
an overall heat map score of 9 indicating yellow risk
• Landing site risks:
• 20% probability exists that the lander would not land
successfully
• With a likelihood of 3 and a consequence of 5, overall heat map score
of 15 falls in red zone
• 6 yellow category risks were identified in the PMSR stage which
reduced to 2 in the CERR stage (one in yellow and one in red
category)
• Overall probability of success of EDL stage was 80% which was much
lesser than the acceptable range of 90% and more
• Possibility of reducing the risk associated with landings as higher
resolution images will be available thus reducing the overall risk to
below 5%
• Delay would give them time to mitigate other risks which are
unknown at present(Unknown of unknown)
• Failure of this project can have catastrophic effects on the prospects
of future funding because the previous MARS mission was also
unsuccessful
• An increase of 20%-40% in cost would substantially increase the
probability project success

The probability of success of project is 80% which falls below the acceptable range of 90%, hence the MBE project must be
delayed to mitigate known and unknown risks. Hence, we would suggest Mr. Lee not to fire the Space flight MBE.
Q2:Comment on the process followed by Jet propulsion? (1/3)

Risk Management Processes in MBE:

The MBE project had a 12-person risk review board, chaired by Lee and comprising experienced and

respected technical experts from JPL, NASA and the projects prime contractor.

The review board created a culture of ‘Intellectual Confrontation’ during three critical review

meetings during the project
• Preliminary Mission and Systems Review
• Critical Design Review
• Critical Events Readiness Review

The board questioned and challenged project engineers thereby giving an outsider’s perspective to project
engineers regarding the possible risks associated with the project

Also, Tiger team formed to review the BMSA Problems.

Q2:Comment on the process followed by Jet propulsion? (2/3)

Risk Management Processes: 5

4
The team assessed the risks likelihood of occurrence based on Likeli-
hood 3
experience and used a two-dimensional matrix called as ‘Heat Map’ to
2
evaluate the seriousness of the issue. Each cell represents the product
1
of risk’s likelihood and consequence. Based on this, the risks were
classified as:
• Risks with score <=5 : Green Zone
1 2 3 4 5
• Risks with score (6-14) : Yellow Zone
Consequence
• Risks with score (>= 15) : Red Zone
Q2: Comment on the process followed by Jet propulsion? (3/3)

For any new project, following steps were followed to mitigate the risks:
•Identification of Risks
• Risks associated with the project were listed out by the various departments involved in the project
• Categorisation of Risks
• Business as usual Risks – To be dealt with Standard Mitigation
• Development Risks – Action Plan Implemented upon RRB Meeting
• Unknown Unknowns Risks - What if Analysis by RRB Members
• Development of Risk Management Plan

•Assess and Evaluate

• Possible solutions and actions plan were prepared by the respected departments
• These were reviewed by the senior management and appropriate course of action was decided

•Take actions
• Actions Review and Report were taken as decided upon in the meeting with the senior management
• These were reviewed continuously during the course by the concerned authorities
• Final report, that contains the assessment of the risk after the proposed actions have been implemented
• The report was reviewed by the higher management and then the proposal was accepted.
 Q3:Do you consider Lee as a Good Risk Manager

• Demonstration of Risk Management Stewardship

• Lee insisted Risk Management (RM) to an integral part of Project instead peripheral framework. So RM is
embedded within the Engg Process so that it would be continually front-of-mind during a project’s life
cycle
• Lee introduced a comprehensive system for managing the risks of planetary missions in MBE
• Lee Chaired Risk Review Board (RRB) and selected the domain experts from all verticals such as Technical
Experts from JPL, NASA Management as well as Project’s Prime Subcontractor. This demonstrates that he
assured the route causes and mitigations are to be communicated through out all the stakeholders
• Relevant experience
• Prior association with the Vikings project of NASA that engineered the first successful landing of
spacecraft on Mars
• Also a part of the Galileo project which was also an inter planetary mission to Jupiter
This will enable him to have a better understanding of the risks associated with this project and possible solutions
to mitigate them
 Q3:Do you consider Lee as a Good Risk Manager

• Past association with the organization

• Having worked with NASA in the past, he had a fairly good understanding of the organizational culture
• Realising the issue that the intellectuals from top universities face, he introduced the concept of
‘Intellectual confrontation’
• Strong Academic background
• He was a graduate from University of Texas and MIT and holds strong academic credentials

Because of the aforementioned reasons, we believe that Lee was a good Risk Manager
Justification on Lee’s skills

JPL’s aim was to successfully execute the space missions

• New risk management policy will help them in identifying and mitigating the risks which in turn will
help JPL to improve their success rate in tandem with their strategy
• Cultural shift from ‘Be bold, take risks’ to new risk management policy in 2000 helped them to further
reduce the risks associated with the planetary missions
• In adherence with the new policy, they embedded the risk management with the engineering process
to ensure that it is continually front of mind during the project’s life
• Concept of ‘Intellectual Confrontation’ was introduced to make scientists comfortable thinking about
the things that can go wrong
THANK YOU