Reliability and Crew Safety Assessment for a Solid Rocket Booster/J-2S Launcher

NASA's exploration mission directorate is currently developing plans to carry out the President's vision for space exploration. This plan includes retiring the Space Shuttle by 2010 and developing the crew exploration vehicle (CEV) to transport astronauts to/from low earth orbit (LEO). There are several alternatives to launch the CEV, including evolved expendable launch vehicles (EELVs) and launch vehicles derived from new and existing propulsion elements. In May, 2003 the astronaut office made clear its position on the need and feasibility of improving crew safety for future NASA manned missions indicating their "consensus that an order of magnitude reduction in the risk of human life during ascent, compared to the Space Shuttle, is both achievable with current technology and consistent with NASA's focus on steadily improving rocket reliability". The astronaut office set a goal for the probability of loss of crew (PLOC) to be better than 1 in 1,000. This paper documents the evolution of a launch vehicle design to meet the needs for launching the crew aboard a CEV. The process implemented and the results obtained from, a top-down evaluation performed on the proposed design are presented