Engineering topics

Diaz, Alphonso V.

Publications and source records attributed to Diaz, Alphonso V..

3 records

NASA NTRS1993

Strategies in transition

A new vision has emerged within the Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA), and within the agency as a whole, for how to design missions to be responsive to the changing budget environment of the 1990s. The overall space science and applications program had to be looked at, restructuring the most expensive and complex projects to bring down costs and ensure their place in the mission queue of the future. The recent restructuring of some of OSSA's largest programs in development and the work to improve efficiency for those in operation is part of OSSA's effort to free funds for more frequent space science missions in the future. Instead of more great observatories, we are looking toward a new vision encompassing a level of great activity through small, frequent missions. The strategy developed for attaining this vision was to lower costs by reducing size and complexity through new technology, while at the same time making progress in space science. The strategy comprises two interwoven parts: the flight program strategy of each of the science disciplines and OSSA's new-technology strategy. The overall purpose of all OSSA's efforts to date has been to free resources for maximizing the space science program in a tough fiscal environment.

Diaz, Alphonso V.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Evolutionary Space Station infrastructure

This paper discusses the approach to Space Station evolution planning and the preliminary analysis of options for the evolution of the infrastructure. The approach emphasizes the analysis of evolution paths, driven by specific user requirements, and evolution modes, i.e., the infrastructure required to support the evolution paths. The objective is to determine the near-term actions that must be taken to protect the future options. These include the identification of evolution 'hooks and scars' on the baseline Space Station and the establishment of an evolution advanced development program. The near term emphasis of the evolution planning is on methods of increasing the efficiency and productivity of the Space Station and on requirements to support new initiatives currently being studied by NASA.

Diaz, Alphonso V.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Space station evolution: Planning for the future

The need for permanently manned presence in space has been recognized by the United States and its international partners for many years. The development of this capability was delayed due to the concurrent recognition that reusable earth-to-orbit transportation was also needed and should be developed first. While the decision to go ahead with a permanently manned Space Station was on hold, requirements for the use of the Station were accumulating as ground-based research and the data from unmanned spacecraft sparked the imagination of both scientists and entrepreneurs. Thus, by the time of the Space Station implementation decision in the early 1980's, a variety of disciplines, with a variety of requirements, needed to be accommodated on one Space Station. Additional future requirements could be forecast for advanced missions that were still in the early planning stages. The logical response was the development of a multi-purpose Space Station with the ability to evolve on-orbit to new capabilities as required by user needs and national or international decisions, i.e., to build an evolutionary Space Station. Planning for evolution is conducted in parallel with the design and development of the baseline Space Station. Evolution planning is a strategic management process to facilitate change and protect future decisions. The objective is not to forecast the future, but to understand the future options and the implications of these on today's decisions. The major actions required now are: (1) the incorporation of evolution provisions (hooks and scars) in the baseline Space Station; and (2) the initiation of an evolution advanced development program.

Diaz, Alphonso V.↗