4.2.1 Responsible Fracture Control Board
[FCR 2] The NASA Center responsible for the human-rated spaceflight hardware shall establish and designate a NASA RFCB to ensure compliance with the technical requirements of this document.
[Rationale: The purpose of this requirement is to clearly establish a NASA RFCB as the body responsible for assuring technical compliance with this NASA Technical Standard.]
4.2.2 Responsible Program
[FCR 3] Human-rated spaceflight programs shall impose fracture control on their projects to meet the requirements of this NASA Technical Standard.
[Rationale: The purpose of this requirement is to ensure this NASA Technical Standard is applied to all human-rated spaceflight programs, including those for unmanned vehicles that approach or dock with human-rated vehicles, such as the International Space Station or Orion. Implementation of fracture control mitigates the risk of catastrophic structural failure related to flaws, thereby increasing reliability of the hardware and the safety of the crew.
4.2.3 Fracture Control Implementation
[FCR 4] Fracture control implementation shall be performed with the oversight, advice, and approval of the RFCB.
[Rationale: This requirement identifies the RFCB as the technical body responsible for determining the adequacy of fracture control implementation. This determination includes assessing whether the project is deploying sufficient technical capabilities and processes for fracture control. It includes monitoring of damage tolerance assessments and hardware verification activities to assure that all hardware complies with the requirements in this document. To accomplish those goals, the RFCB should have opportunities to review and comment on these activities and have access to all the technical information needed to confirm compliance with this document.]
Each project should identify organizational elements (or technical disciplines) and their responsibilities for implementing and documenting fracture control aspects that affect hardware design, manufacturing, inspections, and planned operations. These responsibilities should be identified at project formulation and documented in the FCP. The organizational elements that implement fracture control and assess current hardware developments should be part of project milestone reviews associated with structural integrity and safety. The RFCB should have an
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opportunity to participate in and receive summaries of major project reviews as the program formulates system and hardware requirements, as well as when the hardware developer designs and selects technical approaches for meeting fracture control requirements, generates hardware fracture control assessments, and reports on relevant testing.