NASA Procedures and Guidelines

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This Letter of Agreement (LOA) establishes the collaborative relationship between the Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer, the Office of the Chief Engineer, and the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance for the implementation of Health and Medical Technical Authority (HMTA) throughout the Agency. HMTA is one part of the Agency's technical authority governance model along with Engineering and Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) technical authority. The intent of this LOA is to establish a collaborative agreement to efficiently utilize existing infrastructure (personnel, processes, etc.) at NASA Center to ensure effective implementation of HMTA. The methodology established by this LOA will be utilized in support of all relevant NASA Programs and Projects.

BACKGROUND

The Health and Medical community throughout the Agency does not have the resources/infrastructure to accomplish the HMTA role in a manner consistent with Engineering and S&MA. Currently the NASA Chief Health and Medical officer (CHMO) delegates HMTA to the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at five Centers:

- Johnson Space Center
- Kennedy Space Center
- Goddard Space Flight Center
- Dryden Flight Research Center
- Ames Research Center

The other five Centers do not have a CHO. Other than Johnson Space Center, the four Centers with a CMO do not have staff with Program/Project experience.

Unlike Engineering and S&MA, none of the Centers have HMTA mainstreamed at the working level in the day-to-day Program/Project processes. At the Program/Project level, Engineering and S&MA Technical Authority work is enabled by the contributions of the program/project working-level engineers/S&MA personnel with support from the Center engineering/S&MA infrastructure. They are responsible for raising issues to the Program/Project Manager, Program/Project TAs or Center Engineering/S&MA management, and are a key resource for identifying/resolving these issues. The Engineering and S&MA Technical Authorities are represented on the program/project internal control boards, change boards, and review boards (or their equivalents). Current HMTA implementation increases the risk that HMTA issues will be missed completely or identified too late in the Program/Project life cycle to allow for design modifications without significant impact to cost and schedule

AGREEMENT FOR HMTA IMPLEMENTATION

To effectively implement HMTA across the Agency, Engineering and S&MA personnel already involved in the day to day Program/Project work will be utilized as the "eyes and ears" for the CHMO at the Centers. The Engineering and S&MA personnel will not be assigned as HMTAs but serve as the awareness and communication nodes for potential HMTA issues at each Center.

The OCHMO will develop and provide HMTA awareness training to Engineering and S&MA personnel at each Center so they understand the types of issues impacting HMTA. The OCHMO, OSMA, and OCE will determine the appropriate level of personnel to be trained. The training will incorporate the relationships established by this LOA. The long term goal for the training is to adopt a methodology to ensure HMTA awareness is maintained at the Centers as new programs and projects start up and personnel changes occur in the future.

The OCHMO will establish communication flow paths for Engineering and S&MA personnel to identify potential issues to the proper HMTA authority (i.e., Center CMO, JSC CMO, CHMO).

The OCHMO will revise or recommend changes to all applicable documents to clearly define the process for implementation of HMTA and the roles/responsibilities of Center Engineering and S&MA personnel as the "eyes and ears" for HMTA issues.

Oversight of the effectiveness of this agreement will be provided through OCHMO participation in the OCE Requirements Compliance Surveys at each Center.

FINANCIAL OBLIGATIONS

There will be no transfer of funds or other financial obligations in connection with this agreement. Each organization will fund its own participation in carrying out the implementation of the terms of this agreement. The OCHMO will fund the development and conduct of the initial HMTA awareness training at the Centers. The OCHMO will also fund the long-term training development.