About Space Flight Awareness

Space Flight Awareness (SFA) Program is a NASA-managed motivational and recognition program with invited representation from NASA and contractors having major responsibilities for human spaceflight mission success. The SFA program is managed by the agency’s Space Operations Mission Directorate.

Mission Statement

To ensure employees involved in human spaceflight are aware of the importance of their role in promoting astronaut safety and mission success in the challenging task of flying humans in the hostile environment of space by communicating and educating the government and industry workforce about human spaceflight.

Our Purpose

The SFA Program goals are to:

• Improve employee awareness on the importance of their role in promoting safety, quality, and mission success
• Conduct events that motivate and recognize the workforce and improve employee morale
• Function as an internal communications team to disseminate key program safety, quality, and mission messages
• Maintain supplier motivational and recognition programs

Background of Space Flight Awareness

NASA established the Space Flight Awareness (SFA) Motivation and Recognition Program in 1963 during the Mercury and Gemini period to infuse the space program with a renewed and strengthened consciousness of quality and flight safety. As NASA’s human spaceflight programs continued and developed, the NASA centers increased the assistance they provided to the employees’ motivation programs of their contractors and other government agencies. SFA soon became the watchword of the American space program. 

The SFA Program played an integral and increasingly forceful safety role in the Saturn, Apollo Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz projects. By the time the space shuttle first flew, the program had expanded to include subcontractors providing critical hardware, software, and services. As regular space shuttle missions grew in complexity and the International Space Station became a reality, the SFA Program evolved into one of the single most successful motivational initiatives within all federal and contractor departments and agencies. 

The future of spaceflight brings new opportunities and challenges for the SFA Program. To continue to be effective, the program must keep pace with an ever-changing environment of people, systems and processes that design, build, fly and support human spaceflight. For that reason, the SFA Working Group works diligently to ensure an effective and valuable program. SFA continues to focus on excellence in quality and safety – for the lives of the astronauts, for mission success and for the success of America’s space program.