Human Spaceflight Standards Hierarchy Pyramid

Assessing the interrelationships among standards—and their impact on a specific mission or program—is often essential, especially during the formulation stage of a new program. To facilitate this assessment, a Standards Hierarchy Pyramid was developed to determine how individual standards affect missions. This tool enables teams to look across all standards and evaluate their influence on mission success with respect to loss of crew, loss of mission, and loss of individual mission objectives. The pyramid also categorizes standards that increase the probability of achieving mission objectives. This hierarchy is used to determine the applicability of standards to programs during the formulation stage of development.