NASA Procedural Requirements

NPR 8715.1B Effective Date: February 01, 2021 Expiration Date: February 01, 2026

Subject: NASA Safety and Health Programs

Responsible Office: Office of Safety and Mission Assurance

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 Overview

1.1.1 This directive describes how NASA manages its responsibilities for protecting the public and the workforce from hazards associated with NASA activities and operations. The directive describes the roles and responsibilities, the required institutional safety and health programs, and the Agency requirements for protecting the public and workforce. This directive provides a framework for how NASA manages institutional safety and health. It is intended to be used with other applicable statutes and regulations and Agency and Center requirements.

1.1.2 Institutional safety and health management is a proactive, collaborative process to find and fix hazards associated with NASA activities and operations before someone is injured or becomes ill. It is the application of engineering and management principles, criteria, and techniques to protect the public, workforce, and property from hazards created by NASA activities and operations and to protect the NASA civil service employees from all hazards regardless of location while performing official NASA duties. Its objective is to keep the risk of injury and harm to these entities within acceptable limits.

1.2 Organization of the NPR

1.2.1 Chapter 2 defines the roles and responsibilities for implementing this directive. Chapter 3 describes management of institutional safety requirements and the process for requesting relief from institutional safety requirements in this document and requirements incorporated by reference herein.

1.2.2 Chapters 4 through 9 address safety functional areas where NASA requires the Centers to have a designated Center Institutional Safety Discipline Lead and for which this NPR is the controlling directive.

1.2.3 Chapter 10 addresses aviation safety and delegates oversight of aviation safety to the Aircraft Management Division in the Mission Support Directorate. Chapter 11 addresses radiation safety and references other controlling directives. Chapter 12 addresses functional institutional safety areas tied more directly to missions. These areas are range flight safety, payload safety, nuclear flight safety, and flight pressure vessels and pressurized systems.

1.2.4 Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 address operational specific safety areas and facility safety management.

DISTRIBUTION:
NODIS

This document does not bind the public, except as authorized by law or as incorporated into a contract. This document is uncontrolled when printed. Check the NASA Online Directives Information System (NODIS) Library to verify that this is the correct version before use: https://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov.