An ultra-reliability project for NASA

NASA has embarked on a new program designed to improve the reliability of NASA systems. In this context, the goal for the ultra-reliability program is to ultimately improve the systems by an order of magnitude. The approach outlined in this presentation involves five steps: 1. Divide NASA systems into seven sectors; 2, establish sector champions and representatives from each NASA center; 3. develop a challenge list for each sector using a team of NASA experts in each area with the sector champion facilitating the effort; 4. develop mitigation strategies for each of the sectors' challenge lists and rank their importance by holding a workshop with area experts from government (NASA and non-NASA), universities and industry; 5. develop a set of tasks for each sector in order of importance for improving the reliability of NASA systems. Several NASA-wide workshops have been held, identifying issues for reliability improvement and providing mitigation strategies for these issues. Results from these workshops are presented.