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5. Findings

1. The mainfesting process is one that receives inputs from several areas including NASA Headquarters, JSC, KSC, and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC).  As candidate manifests are being considered, each of the centers and their disciplines assess not only the manifest but also their ability to support the new manifest and production cycle.  All primary payload manifest changes have been agreed to by all parties.

2.  In general, the manifesting was found to be a structured and extremely active process.  The major reasons for this high activity are hardware probelms [[problems]], customer requests, operational constraints, external factors and their accommodation.  When more payloads were flown because of the higher flight rate, there were more problems causing manfiest [[manifest]] changes that ripple through many flights.  The later of these changes occur in the flight production process, the larger the impact on budget and schedule.  The 1985 schedule impacts were accommodated by using the time gaps left over from canceled flights.

3.  To minimize impacts, customer requirements for payload specialists should be finalized at least 5 months prior to launch and before the L-5 review program freeze point to least impact the production process.  External factors cannot be ignored, but the goal should be to identify requirements at the beginning of the production process to support the schedule template.

4.  Late manifest changes that add middeck or secondary payloads or payload specialists with their experiments can draw attention and resources away from the primary flight operations.

5.  The trends indicated that the milestones required to support preparation for the 1986 flight schedule were not being met.  The several flights following STS 51-L would have had less than the optimum amount of flight-unique training without additional launch slips.

6.  Historically, flight launch date slips have provided needed relief to reconfiguration process schedules.

7.  Externally generated (program level) inputs to the reconfiguration process are a significant source of impact to schedules.

8.  The organizations reviewed here are not systematically or regularly overworked.

9.  As a work force, they are not required to work weekends on a regular basis except as real-time mission support warrants and in supporting facilities where it is planned.

10.  Personnel are able to take leave and generally can do so at traditional holiday periods.

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