An approach to studying the reliability of microgravity experiments

The identification of key factors that influence the non-success of experiments conducted under microgravity conditions will aid in the planning, design and implementation of future space shuttle experiments, as well as other microgravity experiments (i.e., experiments conducted on the Space Station). Similarly, knowledge of the experiments' reliability will assist in forecasting the success of forthcoming experiments. Since a relatively large number of Space Shuttle experiments have been conducted to date, a substantial pool of data exists for assessing the possible causes or factors which influence experiment non-successes. This report details the task being undertaken at NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC) to measure the Space Shuttle experiments non-success trends and identify causes that significantly affect their performance. It addresses the activities associated with correlating experiment macro-factors with experiment non-successes. The development and implementation of a microgravity database to be used for tracking and correlating experiment non-success factors, as well as the criteria for measuring experiment success and non-success is also discussed.