Mars Pathfinder mission

ON 4 JULY 1997, THE MARS PATHFINDER spacecraft successfully landed on the surface of Mars, marking the first visit by a spacecraft to the surface of the Red Planet since the Viking missions in 1976. The following day, the Sojourner Rover rolled down its deployment ramp and became the first autonomous vehicle to traverse the surface of another planet. During its nearly three months of operation on the surface of Mars, Sagan Memorial Station and Sojourner transmitted 2.6 gigabits of science and engineering data, including over 16,000 lander camera images; 550 rover camera images; 8.5 million individual temperature, pressure and wind measurements; 16 separate chemical measurements of Martian rocks and soil; and the results of 10 technology experiments on the rover. The science data collected from the surface and atmosphere has added significant new information to man's understanding of Mars (see sidebar).

This award-winning project is the perfect example of achieving the ultimate project management goal: better, faster, cheaper.

Project Lift-Off. Since the early days of space travel, project management has played a crucial role in getting the program off the ground. Engineers, scientists and managers of various space programs have used project management techniques to journey into space and bring back valuable information.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology located in Pasadena, Calif., was chosen to manage the Mars Pathfinder project and received its formal development go-ahead in November 1993 from NASA's Office of Space Science. The mission, conceived as an engineering demonstration of a reliable, low-cost system for delivering payloads to the surface of Mars, focused primarily on scientific objectives. The NASA Discovery Program initiated the project with the desire for “Better, Faster, Cheaper” missions with a maximum three-year development cycle and a cost cap of $150 million. The Sojourner Rover was funded separately by NASA's Advanced Concepts and Technology Office at a cost cap of $25 million. The mission operations phase was funded separately at $13.9 million.

To fully appreciate the challenge presented by these cost and schedule requirements, consider the two Viking missions, which landed on Mars in 1976: they had a six-year development period and a combined development cost of $915 million (equivalent to $3 billion in 1992 dollars). Due to its low cost and short development schedule, Pathfinder required a unique spacecraft design and a creative project plan to achieve mission success.

The mission also faced several major technical hurdles that required tremendous innovation and dedication on the part of the Pathfinder management and technical teams. Three of the most challenging proved to be: mechanical assembly, integration and test of the flight system; demonstration and test of the entry, descent, landing (EDL) system; and development/operation of a surface rover with autonomous navigation capability. Thanks to a talented and dedicated team of hundreds of “pathfinders,” the Mars Pathfinder Project met all of its technical challenges, completing its development on schedule and under the NASA cost cap, and proved that planetary missions can succeed in the “faster, better, cheaper” environment.

The Mars Pathfinder project distinguished itself by applying innovative project management techniques. Mission success was accomplished by focusing on a limited set of objectives, streamlining project approaches and minimizing bureaucratic interference. Project management practices that were key to the success of Mars Pathfinder included:

Craig Sholes, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, served as financial manager for the Mars Pathfinder project.

Natalie Chalfin ([email protected]) is a staff writer for PMI Publishing Division.

Two months prior to launch, JPL engineers and technicians performed a detailed inspection of the Mars Pathfinder rover and lander. Such attention to detail and repeated testing drastically decreased project risk.

One Big Happy … Pathfinder management co-located approximately 100 engineers of project management; system engineering; attitude and information management; hardware, software and IT; mission design; and ground data systems. This move provided for effective communication, problem solving, and family atmosphere among team members.

Keeping a Hand In. Because of management's micro-knowledge of the technical design, programmatic resources and margins, the project maintained momentum through hands-on leadership and rapid decision-making.

Rebels and Risktakers. Having a smaller subset of policies and procedures to follow and more leeway to focus on the most critical aspects of the mission made the people, not the policy, responsible for the system being reliable.

Honesty is the Policy. Openness, honesty and personal responsibility helped team members at all levels speak out on a variety of uncovered problems, which resulted in better work relationships and collaborative solutions to problems.

Covering All the Bases. By holding more than 100 peer reviews on all project aspects, team members were more thorough when testing procedures and equipment, and anticipated problems better, thus decreasing project risk.

Accountability Counts. Team members from the JPL technical divisions remained administratively tied to their home division, but were directly accountable to the project for performance, cost and schedule.

Discipline = Efficiency. Pathfinder management hired a team of engineers who were cross-disciplinary. This allowed the total staff to be much smaller than for similar projects in the past. It also allowed for faster decision-making and less inefficiency during the transition between different phases of the project. Transitioning designers/builders into the testers/operators saved time and reduced risk. Having a team of generalists also made it easier to cross-train workers.

Meet-and-Greet Solutions. Pathfinder meetings solved problems in real time, which encouraged team attendance.

Share and Share Alike. The Pathfinder project implemented a centralized data management system to be able share information between team members more efficiently. In addition, a centralized library (hard copy and electronic) was created and staffed by a professional librarian familiar with the latest database storage and retrieval systems. This provided reference access to all major designs and documents created by the project.

Managing Project Scope. Scope centered around achieving the mission success criteria: successful landing and return of EDL engineering telemetry; acquisition and transmission of a single, partial panoramic image; successful rover deployment and operation; and complete a 30 sol (Martian day) primary lander mission in addition to all engineering, science and technology objectives, which established and assigned weights based upon the importance of each criterion to the Office of Space Science at NASA.

In addition, the Advanced Concepts and Technology Office at NASA had the following specific mission success criteria for the rover team: complete a 7 sol primary rover mission on the surface; and take at least one successful Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer measurement of a Martian rock and a Martian soil sample.

The design was capability driven instead of requirements driven. In order to achieve cost and schedule constraints, the mission, flight and ground system designs were strongly driven by existing hardware and system capability.

Since the early days of space travel, project management has played a crucial role in getting the program off the ground.

Managing the Schedule. Due the orbital relationship between Earth and Mars, maintaining the launch schedule for a mission to Mars is extremely critical. The 30-day launch window needed for a successful trajectory to Mars occurs only once every 26 months. In other words, a launch slip of more than 30 days would mean a 26-month postponement of the mission.

The schedule was maintained by the flight system manager and project scheduler. It tracked events such as RFPs; contract start and end dates; design reviews; fabrication deliveries; deliveries of major subsystems; and completions during assembly, test and launch operations. A major item delivery database was developed to connect the Level 3/4 schedules into two performance assessment metrics: one for total planned vs. actual flight system events and another for planned vs. actual major testing and delivery events. This provided a good indicator of ahead- or behind-schedule condition.

The project managed within its budgeted schedule margin, and was ready to launch on 2 December 1996—the first day of the launch window. However, due to weather and other considerations, the actual launch took place on 4 December 1996.

Managing Cost. From the beginning, the Mars Pathfinder Project faced a tremendous resource management challenge. As a Discovery Mission, the development was cost-capped; thus, it was much more of a design-to-cost project than previous JPL missions.

The baseline budget for Pathfinder, based upon a grassroots cost estimate, was formalized and presented at the Design, Implementation and Cost Review held in July 1993. The budget was based on a product-oriented work breakdown structure. The development baseline was scoped at $131 million, with $40 million held in reserve. The project reserve was planned in detail and was time-phased throughout the project, based upon estimated time of need. The high level of planned reserves was primarily due to the risks associated with developing the unique entry, descent, landing system, the new avionics and software approach, the high-technology telecommunications subsystem, and the complexity involved with the mechanical assembly and test of the three-in-one spacecraft design.

The Pathfinder project benefited from existing JPL multimission infrastructure, which permitted the ground data system and mission operations development to be completed for under $10 million, a substantial reduction from what had historically been spent for missions of similar scope.

Another important factor in the financial success of Pathfinder: a “designers/builders become the testers/operators" philosophy, which saved documentation, was efficient in the use of people, and reduced risk. The project also worked to efficiently roll-off personnel at designated times. The transition of Pathfinder team members onto other projects at the end of their assignments was not usually a problem because Pathfinder personnel were in great demand around the lab.

One of the most significant factors in meeting the cost cap was the institution of time-phased “what if” and lien lists, which accounted for real or potential cost growth requests from technical managers for which project reserves might need to be applied. Technical managers were responsible for identifying current and anticipated items of cost growth to project management, which would then make the decision to record it as “hard” or “soft.” An unavoidable or high-probability cost growth item was recorded as a “hard” lien. A low-probability cost growth request with sufficient merit was recorded as a “soft” lien.

The Pathfinder project also found innovative ways to save money. For example, the flight system manager and financial manager initiated a system for generating memorandums of understanding for spare hardware transfers between Mars Pathfinder and other JPL projects, resulting in approximately $750,000 in cost credits for Pathfinder. This was a win/win relationship for both projects, leading to lower costs for Pathfinder, and lower costs and reduced schedule time for the receiving project, which acquired flight qualified hardware without the normal procurement and testing lead time.

The project also used JPL accounting changes to its advantage by applying a reduced burden rate to Pathfinder resident field personnel at Cape Canaveral during the launch campaign, which resulted in a $300,000 savings. The project held Monthly Management Reviews (MMRs), where management would review in detail the status of cost and schedule performance for each element of the project. The bottom line is that Pathfinder completed its development approximately $400,000 under the NASA cost cap without reducing its original scope of work.

Managing Project Quality. The Mars Pathfinder approach to quality management had one overriding theme: instill a sense of personal responsibility for and commitment to quality on the part of each team member. If people are given the responsibility and authority to do the job, they feel a sense of ownership, and therefore feel personally responsible for its success. There was also a commitment to employing “common sense” approaches rather than rigid, traditional approaches. By streamlining traditional processes, exhibiting flexibility and taking a measured degree of risk, Pathfinder achieved mission success without sacrificing quality.

For example, the Pathfinder mission assurance program was the first truly “tailored” mission assurance approach at JPL. It featured flexibility, common sense, concurrent engineering, and lower cost. Documentation was cut significantly, team members were empowered to make decisions, and selective redundancy was employed. The mission assurance cost was less than one-third of the traditional cost, and the number of problem/failure reports was less than one-quarter of normal.

Managing Human Resources. Mars Pathfinder management realized that the most important factor in the success of the mission would be a talented team of people who could work together in an environment that would foster innovation and dedication. The team of JPL, NASA and contractor personnel were highly skilled and completely committed to mission success. The challenge associated with new ways of doing business and the willingness of project management to give workers ownership to make critical decisions kept employee motivation and morale at a high level throughout the entire project. One of the greatest strengths of the Mars Pathfinder Project was its communication between team members.

The Mars Pathfinder philosophy was to have a flat organization, which would be inherently better for project communications. The management team was on a first-name basis with nearly every member of the team. Key decisions could be made quickly because the management team communicated constantly with all levels of personnel. They knew the status, problems, problem ramifications, and who was right to fix the problem. A flat organization was found to foster a sense of trust between management and other team members. From the project manager on down, open and honest communication was always encouraged. Everyone on Mars Pathfinder worked for only one goal: mission success. No hidden agendas were tolerated.

Managing Project Communication. The Mars Pathfinder Project had many different stakeholders:

JPL Management and Other JPL Employees. To effectively reach these audience stakeholders, JPL senior management was briefed monthly on the technical and programmatic status of the project, and the team gave presentations on the status of the project for the benefit of the JPL employees.

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How It Works

The Pathfinder flight system was designed as a three-in-one spacecraft with a passive entry, descent, landing (EDL) system to enter and descend directly through the Martian atmosphere. This differed from the Viking landing approach, which had the lander vehicle descend from the spacecraft after establishing an orbit around Mars. The three-in-one spacecraft design consisted of a cruise stage, an entry vehicle, and a tetrahedral-shaped lander. The EDL system consisted of a heat shield (to protect the lander during initial entry into the Martian atmosphere), a parachute (to slow the spacecraft further after initial entry), an altimeter (for the spacecraft to read altitude during descent), a bridle (which lowered the lander from the backshell prior to the firing of rocket-assisted decelerators), the RAD rockets (which brought the spacecraft to a stop approximately 60 feet above the ground, and airbags (which inflated around the lander and protected it as it was cut from its bridle and bounced onto the surface of Mars).

The lander carried a suite of instruments (color stereo imaging camera, ASI Met weather station, dust magnets) and a free-ranging robotic rover to perform science investigations and technology experiments. The rover carried the Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (an instrument for measuring the elemental composition of rocks and soil), and was also equipped with color and black-and-white cameras. The investigations included studying the form and structure of the Martian surface and its geology; examining the elemental composition and mineralogy of surface materials, including the magnetic properties of airborne dust; atmospheric science investigations; meteorology at the surface (including aerosols), studying soil mechanics and properties of surface materials; and investigating the rotational and orbital dynamics of the planet from two-way ranging and Doppler tracking of the lander as Mars rotates.

NASA. The project team was in constant communication with NASA about the status of the project through the NASA monthly management review process, quarterly reviews, annual operating plan review, and numerous peer reviews.

The Science Community. The Pathfinder project scientist worked on keeping the outside science community informed and involved throughout the entire project by holding open science workshops and publishing abstracts and papers in respected science journals.

Schools (Educators and Students). The Pathfinder team had been heavily involved with an extensive education and public outreach program from the beginning of the project. Project members worked to create educational modules for use in the public schools, and partnered with high schools and colleges to participate in mentoring programs. The project produced a variety of educational and public outreach materials that have been distributed to schools and to the general public.

The General Public and Private Industry. An extensive website was developed, which allowed for update of project information to internal and external audiences. During the seven-month cruise to Mars, website capabilities were increased for the anticipated demand on landing day. Over 30 mirror sites were established worldwide, which allowed tens of millions of people all over the world to access images and information on Pathfinder landing, in near real time.

Managing Risk. What project could have more inherent technical risk than landing on the surface of another planet? The complexities of required hardware and software, combined with uncertainties about the planet's environment (atmosphere, landing site conditions) makes a mission such as Mars Pathfinder an extreme technical challenge. And, returning to the surface of Mars for less than 10 percent of the cost of the Viking missions presented the project with increased financial risk.

Understanding risks early in the project was key to mitigating them. For example, the Pathfinder management team decided early on that volume, cost and schedule constraints would require a largely single-string design, which in itself is higher risk. Knowing this up front, the Pathfinder team selected a high percentage of more reliable parts to mitigate the risk associated with single-string design. One factor in Pathfinder's favor was the relatively short seven-month cruise period and low radiation environment on Mars. Management planned on getting 1,000–2,000 hours of operating time on the electronics before flight; they exceeded this goal as most hardware underwent 2,600 hours of test time prior to launch. By doing this, the project substantially reduced their risk of an electronic parts failure during the mission.

Risk was also reduced in the early stages of the project by accomplishing system, inter-subsystem and subsystem failure modes, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) between preliminary design review and critical design review. Management made a commitment to devote resources to building hardware and software flight test beds for development and troubleshooting early on in the project.

Part of the test program included a functional demonstration of each element of the EDL system in the most realistic environment possible within the constraints of budget, schedule and Earth's environment. This included functional testing of the airbags, parachute, bridle and rocket-assisted decelerators. In addition to physical tests, Pathfinder engineers performed thousands of simulations of EDL scenarios. Starting the assembly, test and launch operations phase 18 months prior to launch also aided in Pathfinder success. This allowed for plenty of time to work out issues related to mechanical integration and environmental test, while getting over 2,600 hours on most electronic parts.

Financial risk was managed by starting with adequate project reserves, and metering out the reserves rationally throughout the life of the project. One of the secrets to Pathfinder was not overcommitting reserves up front, so that potential cost growth during assembly, test and launch operations (ATLO) could be accommodated. Another important strategy for managing financial risk: developing a set of de-scope options, which could be implemented if necessary. In Pathfinder's case, the planned reserves covered all of the cost growth, so de-scope options weren't needed.

Managing Project Procurement. Contract and procurement management on Mars Pathfinder was part of a new way of doing business at JPL. Although Pathfinder was awarded as a JPL in-house development, there were significant portions of the work performed by industry partners. Thus, the need to develop a sound procurement plan and implementation was critical.

A hardware acquisition team provided end-to-end tracking and problem solving on subcontracts and other procurements. Members of the hardware acquisition team consisted of JPL contract technical managers, procurement negotiators and project element managers (responsible for delivering hardware). JPL held regular monthly meetings with each participating division, at which procurement status was reviewed.

Status information was maintained via a report called the Mars Pathfinder Procurement-Planning Summary. The hardware acquisition team manager issued this weekly report to the project staff and all participants. In addition, a color-coded chart for major acquisitions called “Hardware Acquisition–Major Procurements" was initiated and presented monthly at the project MMRs to show schedule status on major procurements from requisition through delivery. The “Red/Yellow/Green Chart" was helpful to team management, NASA and our industry contractors in flagging which contracts and other procurements were on schedule for delivery (green), starting to slip (yellow), or seriously behind schedule (red). This motivated contractors to remain on schedule so as not to reflect poorly when compared to the others.

A major contributor to completing the development under the cost cap was the ability of team management and the acquisition team to negotiate a high percentage of fixed-price contracts with industry in an environment which has historically executed cost-plus contracts. Approximately 70 percent of major procurements on Pathfinder were fixed price. This reduced the financial risk to the project considerably.

There was also an electronic parts expert from Mission Assurance assigned as parts manager, who was responsible for the procurements and deliveries of small electronic parts for the project. This freed up the acquisition team to focus on the major subcontracts and other large procurements. Smaller procurements on the project were purchased under blanket requisitions, which also saved a significant amount of processing time.

INNOVATIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT approaches to cutting cost and time, as well as conducting thousands of preventative risk tests, enabled the Mars Pathfinder project team to meet NASA's requirements of a “better, faster, cheaper” voyage into space. This award-winning project is simply one more small step for man, another giant leap for mankind … and for project management.

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