Safety analysis of Brazilian suborbital launch operations based on system-theoretic approach

• Antonio Vinicius Diniz Merladet Industrial Fostering and Coordination Institute
• Rodrigo De Melo Silveira Industrial Fostering and Coordination Institute
• Sergio Fugivara Institute of Aeronautics and Space
• Carlos Henrique Netto Lahoz Aeronautics Institute of Technology

Abstract

The proposed analysis consists in identify aspects that can influence safety and mission fulfilment in Brazilian Suborbital Launch Operations through the application of System-Theoretic Process Analysis, a new hazard analysis technique capable of identifying potential hazardous design and operational flaws, including system design errors and unsafe interactions among multiple procedures and system components. This work identifies losses, hazards, system-level safety constraints, hierarchical control structure of the general system, unsafe control actions, loss scenarios that could occur and related causal factors, detecting possibilities of improvements for future launch operations of Brazilian suborbital launch vehicles by acting throughout the life cycle of the products to avoid undesired events or mitigate their consequences.

Keywords: STPA, Stamp, safety analysis, launch operations, Brazilian suborbital vehicles