Safety at Michoud Assembly Facility
The Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., ensures the safety, and enhances the success, of all Marshall Center activities, from its industrial safety program to the emerging NASA technologies and space exploration program.
Part of the directorate's responsibility is to develop, implement and oversee NASA-wide policies and procedures on safety, reliability, maintainability and quality assurance.
The Shuttle Assurance Department supports the safety and mission efforts of the Space Shuttle Propulsion Office as it strives to continue to fly the space shuttle safely. The department works closely with the offices responsible for the four propulsion elements: the external tank, the reusable solid rocket motors, the solid rocket boosters and the main engines.
The Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance Department is proficient in the requirements for system safety, reliability, quality and risk management, and provides independent assessments on safety and mission requirements.
Another important initiative of the directorate is the Marshall Space Flight Awareness program. Because human space flight involves such uncommon components and risks, exceptional quality must go into the hardware and software that our astronauts depend on. The Space Flight Awareness program educates the workforce about those dangers and ensures that each employee is aware of the importance of his or her role in promoting astronaut safety and successful missions in the challenging task of flying humans in the hostile environment of space.
