Interplanetary Logistics

The success of future manned interplanetary space ventures will depend heavily upon reliable in-flight maintenance despite the spectacular progress in spacecraft component and system reliability. The design of efficient on-board checkout equipment and the development of relatively simple automatic maintenance techniques are requisites for the security of the long-range flights now planned. This paper presents a method for increasing the reliability of space systems through on board checkout equipment and selective automatic maintenance. This concept is called CEFOAM (Checkout Equipment For On-Board Automatic Maintenance).