The Challenge

The leading Australian hypersonic vehicle company required detailed safety and regulatory compliance services, and support for approvals required from NASA to operate their vehicle’s mission from the NASA’s Wallops Range in Virginia USA. The brief also required a safety assessment to demonstrate compliance with the stringent NASA range safety requirements.

What We Did

​Plan Safe team has extensive experience in conducting risk assessment and demonstrating compliance with space range safety standards, including the NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Range Safety Manual (GSFC-STD-8009) and associated range safety standards (e.g. Space Systems COPV standard – ANSI/AIAA S-081B-2018).

Our team conducted the risk assessment from ground hazardous operations, as follow:

· conducting a systematic hazard identification during each phase of the ground operations (using Bow-tie methodology), with associated controls.

· Prepared and facilitated hazard identification Workshop with SMEs to review/identify hazards, controls and assign risk ratings, incorporating relevant outcomes into the HAZOP worksheet.

· Conduct a detailed research of the applicable range safety requirements applicable in the spaceport targeted for launch operations, evaluating the compliance of the hypersonic vehicle propulsion system to those range requirements, providing guidance and recommendations to achieve compliance based on track record experience in space activities licencing and range safety standards compliance.

· Produce the Propulsion system’s Hazard Assessment Management Report, with a qualitative argument supporting that the risk associated to the vehicle’s ground activities are adequately safe and comply with applicable range safety standards.

The Outcome

Plan Safe successfully produced the safety artefact required to obtain the hypersonic vehicle’s launch permit from the NASA Wallops Range. Moreover, the rigorous requirements of the NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Range Safety Manual and associated range safety regulations/standards was incorporated into the vehicle’s design, testing and operations.