Lisa Colloredo: Boeing, SpaceX Work to Address NASA ‘LOC’ Safety Requirement for Crew Vehicles

Lisa Colloredo, deputy program manager for NASA’s commercial crew program, has said Boeing and SpaceX should be able to meet the agency’s safety requirements as they prepare to enter the flight testing phase for their commercial crew spacecraft over the next year, Space News reported Monday.

Colloredo said at the Wednesday meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations panel that both companies have initiated a lot of redesign efforts to meet NASA’s “loss of crew” requirement, such as changes to the vehicle’s’ thermal protection systems.

Under the LOC requirement, the companies need to prove that the risk of serious injury or accidental death of a crewmember on their spacecraft under a 210-day International Space Station mission should not exceed one in 270 flights.

“It’s pretty likely in the end that SpaceX and Boeing will come in with their evidence that they meet the requirement or close to it,” Colloredo added.

SpaceX plans to conduct an unmanned test flight of its Crew Dragon vehicle in April 2018, while Boeing is set to perform an uncrewed flight test of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft in August 2018, the report added.