Chapter 25 - Crew Training Safety: An Integrated Process

Abstract

This chapter represents an overview of how astronauts are trained on the general and specific safety aspects of the systems they use to accomplish their required tasks. The main principles, methodology, and requirements for ensuring the safety of the crew during training are presented. A discussion of training validation and how it, together with comments from the crew, can provide invaluable feedback for the safe and efficient utilization of a space system is also presented. The crew is an essential factor in the safety of any mission. As such, astronaut training, by its very essence, plays a major role in ensuring the safety of a flight. Even though training cannot be considered a space system per se, it is a function whose contribution to the overall safety of a space mission is as essential as a safe design or good flight procedures. Because it represents the ultimate encounter of the end users, that is, the astronauts, with the hardware before its use during a space mission, the training development, validation, and evaluation process naturally completes the hardware certification and the flight procedures validation processes. Further evidence that crew training is both directly and indirectly essential to safety is that the crewmembers themselves are certified through training, and this eventually enables their flight readiness.