We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our new self-paced training courses on the Teachable platform, designed to elevate your expertise and advance your career in safety engineering and software system safety. Our courses are crafted to provide you with the flexibility to learn at your own pace while gaining valuable insights and skills.

Current Offering: Risk Management for Safety Engineers

We’re excited to offer our first course, Risk Management for Safety Engineers. This course is now available and is tailored for professionals who want to deepen their understanding of risk management principles and their application in safety engineering. The curriculum covers essential topics such as risk assessment methodologies, hazard identification, risk mitigation strategies, and regulatory compliance. Whether you’re looking to refine your skills or gain new ones, this course provides a comprehensive foundation to enhance your professional capabilities.

Key Features of Risk Management for Safety Engineers:

• Flexible Learning: Access course materials anytime, anywhere.
• Interactive Modules: Engaging content with real-world case studies and practical exercises.
• Expert Instruction: Learn from industry leaders with years of experience in safety engineering.
• Certification: Receive a certificate upon completion to showcase your achievement.

Coming Soon: Software System Safety Engineering

We’re also excited to announce that our next course, Software System Safety Engineering, will be available soon. This upcoming course is designed for those who specialize in or are interested in software systems within safety-critical environments. It will cover critical topics such as software safety standards, hazard analysis for software systems, and the integration of safety principles into software processes.

What to Expect from Software System Safety Engineering:

• In-Depth Coverage: Learn about safety standards and safety engineering practices specific to software systems through out the life cycle.
• Practical Exercises: Participate in exercises and real-world scenarios to apply theoretical knowledge.
• Expert Insights: Gain perspectives from seasoned professionals in software system safety.
• Certification: Receive a certificate upon completion to showcase your achievement.

Why Choose Our Courses?

Our self-paced courses on Teachable are designed to accommodate busy professionals who need flexibility in their learning schedule. With high-quality content and expert instructors, you can be sure that you’re investing in a valuable educational experience that will enhance your skills and career prospects.

Ready to get started? Visit our Teachable page to register for Risk Management for Safety Engineers today and stay tuned for the release of Software System Safety Engineering.

Visit our Training page to see all of our training offerings.

We look forward to supporting your learning journey and helping you achieve your professional goals!

APT employee-owner, Brenda Wall, was mentioned in an article from NASA OSMA (below). She was instrumental in the course update.

Image Credit: NASA

The NASA Range Flight Safety Program, with support from the NASA Safety Center (NSC), recently released an update to “Range Flight Safety Analysis” (SMA-AS-WBT-435), available in SATERN. The new training includes recent policy changes, updated materials and the new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Code of Federal Regulations Part 450 requirements. It also converts previous in-class exercises to instructor-led demonstrations.

“The new course, which is required for Range Flight Safety analysists, is much easier to digest and take over a stretch of time, as it’s broken into six modules that will take approximately 14.5 hours to complete,” said Chuck Loftin, Range Flight Safety program manager. “It reflects what we feel are the learning preferences of today. Years ago, we taught this course in-person over a week. Then, in 2013, we worked with the NSC to capture the 27-or-so hours of training and exercises for an online-learning experience. This was really progressive and allowed people to take training more easily, but it’s been almost another decade — we’ve once again evolved on how we like to take in information, as well as our tools for virtual learning. We truly believe this new approach with shorter modules and a mix of web-based demonstrations will be a better learning experience.”

One of the primary roles of Range Flight Safety is to perform flight analyses to identify and mitigate risk to the public, NASA workforce and property. This course is designed to give learners a good understanding of NASA methods in conducting Range Flight Safety analysis. While providing an overview of FAA and Department of Defense requirements, the course focuses on NASA requirements for flight safety analysis; a discussion of range operations hazards, risk criteria, and Risk Management processes; and an in-depth coverage of containment and Risk Management analyses. It covers a variety of vehicle types, including Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Unguided Launch Vehicles (sounding rockets), Guided Launch Vehicles and other unique flight vehicles at NASA centers across the country. The course concentrates on debris hazards and analyses but includes an overview of toxic, blast and radiation analyses as well.

With such a comprehensive agenda, one of the most notable changes in the new course is the exam. The 2013 course included one comprehensive exam at the end of the 27+ hours of training, while the new course includes several mini exams at key points (module conclusion) throughout the course to better enable learning over a period of time.

“The old course was monolithic with one comprehensive exam at the end of the course,” said Brenda Wall, Range Safety engineer with Safety and Mission Assurance Support Services APT at Kennedy Space Center. “Taking the previous course over weeks or months as the student’s schedule permitted was challenging because the exam was comprehensive. Now, the new course has a modular structure. Each module has its own mini exam at the end. This structure facilitates the student’s ability to progress through the course at their own pace whenever they have time.”

Each module builds off preceding ones and to receive credit, learners must complete all modules and exams. As noted, this course is required for Range Flight Safety analysts.

“It’s in NASA-STD-8719.25 as one of the requirements for Range Flight Safety analysts,” explained Wall. “This is one of the foundation courses that each of the centers use to train their Range Safety professionals, and it’s a good course for people who have to deal with Range Flight Safety and want to learn more or better understand ‘What does Range Flight Safety do for me?’ It is a different discipline; we deal within what’s called failure space: what happens if something fails. However, most people deal with success space. Everybody wants to get the mission done, get the ‘good science’ or the mission objectives accomplished, and we do too, but we want to get there safely and look at the scenarios of ‘What if something does happen? What if something does go wrong?’ We want to make sure our people are safe, our assets are safe and the environment is safe.”

Wall believes the modular structure will appeal to those trying to gain a better understanding of Range Flight Safety, especially as it pertains to their specific program or project, as they can take only the modules that affect them.

“I hope it helps open the door for people who can benefit from understanding Range Flight Safety, but who aren’t required to take the course, simply because it’s more manageable,” said Wall.

For learners who are not required to take this course and simply want a better understanding of a particular section or vehicle type, the training can be broken up and taken as individual modules, but this is not recommended.

The new course includes 27 videos, eight instructor-led demonstrations and a lot of visuals.

“It’s designed to be engaging, with a large number of photos and videos to convey key concepts and keep the topics interesting,” said Wall. “It’s been many years [since we did the last course] and we’ve morphed that into something much more web-friendly. We’ve really tailored it to the individual at a computer taking this course so they can get the most benefit from the material. It’s an evolution. We get better each time we do this.”

Questions about the course can be directed to Loftin or Wall.

Source: https://sma.nasa.gov/news/articles/newsitem/2022/08/08/updated-range-flight-safety-course-improves-training-experience

APT employee-owner, Jack Fitzgibbon, was mentioned in an article from NASA OSMA (below).

Image Credit: NASA

The Office of Safety and Mission Assurance enhanced the Payload Safety program to cover all payload projects. As part of this process, the program recently released a revision to NASA-STD-8719.24, NASA Payload Safety Requirements, effective March 20, 2022. This standard update followed a significant revision to NPR 8715.7B, NASA Payload Safety Program, effective April 27, 2020.

“Payloads often incorporate hazards that can pose significant risk to life and property,” said Tom Frattin, Payload Safety program manager. “These payload hazards exist regardless of the launch vehicle provider or launch vehicle procurement method. We’ve found that combined, the NASA Procedural Requirements and Standard accomplish the key technical objective of containing or mitigating the risk to the public; NASA workforce; and any property requiring protection from hazards associated with payload design, fabrication, testing, integration, processing, launch, and recovery for variety of NASA payload missions.”

This standard establishes technical safety requirements for unmanned orbital and unmanned deep space payloads that fly onboard launch vehicles. NASA and the USSF Range Safety representatives jointly developed, approved and endorsed the requirements contained in the standard and its Annex using Space Force Space Command Manual (SPFCMAN) 91-710, Range Safety User Requirements and NASA safety standards.

The NASA-STD-8719.24 revision

• Maintains consistency with NPR 8715.7 and NPR 8715.1, NASA Safety and Health Programs
• Reflects current revision of USSF SPFCMAN 91-710, Volumes 1, 3, 6 and 7
• Includes changes to Volume 1, Table 3.2, Acceptability Guidelines for Launch and Recovery Sites Hazard Consequences and Probability Categories that clearly define Hazard Severity categories and outcomes, as well as monetary values under Potential Consequences
• Reflects the adoption of ANSI/American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) S-080-2018 Space Systems – Metallic Pressure Vessels, Pressurized Structures, and Pressure Components and AIAA/S-081B-2018, Space Systems – Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessels (COPVs)
• Refers to NPR 8715.26, NASA Nuclear Safety Requirements to enhance Nuclear Flight Safety (NFS), along with USSF NFS requirements
• Has a “Select Status” option in the checklist, which requires users to select “Information,” “Not Applicable,” “Compliant,” “Tailored” or “Noncompliant” (Note: An Excel version of the checklist is available on the NASA Tech Standards website and provides the Payload Safety Working Group an efficient method for documenting rationale/comments)

Questions about the standard update can be directed to Frattin or Jack Fitzgibbon, payload safety engineer with APT at Kennedy Space Center.

Source: https://sma.nasa.gov/news/articles/newsitem/2022/08/08/updates-to-payload-safety-policies-supports-new-and-existing-programs

Mr. George Gafka has been named as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of A-P-T Research, Inc.

Mr. Gafka formerly served as Executive Vice President, Chief Innovation and Development Officer, and the SEAC and Aerospace Sector General Manager. Prior to joining APT Research, he had a distinguished 30-year career at NASA supporting several human spaceflight programs from a number of diverse leadership positions (Chief Engineer, Chief Safety Officer, and S&MA Director) during life-cycle phases spanning from early development to real-time operations.

Over the span of his career, Mr. Gafka received numerous prestigious awards for his leadership and, as an avid believer in continuous learning, he has earned a diverse set of academic degrees:

• Master of Business Administration, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, 2014
• Professional Certificate Aircraft Accident Investigation, Southern California Safety Institute, 2007
• Master of Space Systems Engineering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, 2006
• Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, University of Houston, 1995
• Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 1991

Mr. Gafka brings a wealth of broad technical and business management knowledge, seasoned experience across many roles and programs, proven critical decision-making judgment, and expert leadership to develop and implement innovative, tailored solutions that thoughtfully balance complex competing considerations such as cost, schedule, and safety.