Case Study #2 CALIPSO: Management Challenges within a Complex Project Structure Background The CALIPSO (Cloud Aerosol Lider and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations) mission was designed as a pioneering tool for observing and measuring clouds and aerosols, tiny airborne particles. A better understanding of the role of clouds and aerosols has many applications, from pollution control to weather forecasting CALIPSO was a joint project between NASA and the French space agency CNES The Origins of CALIPSO The CALIPSO mission was proposed by Langley Research Center (LaRC) in 1998 for NASA's second series of missions in the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) program. The CALIPSO lidar instrument was the maturation of a 1993 Shuttle attached instrument experiment called LITE Figure 1. CALIPSO CloudSat Contrasting views of Project Management CALIPSO (first named PICASSO) originated when NASA was in the carly stages of the Principal Investigator (PD) mode of project management, an approach advocated by Agency Administrator Dan Goldin. The premise was that the Pis chosen to load future space science missions would have complete responsibility for the mission, with minimum project guidance or involvement from NASA There were two schools of thought about this new direction One held that the P1 mode would lead to increased competition among NASA centers, ultimately benefiting the overall NASA mission. Specifically, it would develop project management capabilities outside of Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PL), the two centers that did the majority of robotic space flight missions in the agency The other camp argued that only GSFC and JPL should do tlight missions all missions, in this view, should go through one of these two centers if only because replication of project management capabilities was too costly elsewhere CALIPSO, though proposed by Langley and with the P from litter, was funded through Goddard's ISSP Program Office like all other ESSP sons in the ESSP program). Based on the emerging Plmde, huwever, the Program Office was expected to apply only "light touch" management to the mission, allowing the PI and his team to manage the mission. This was in accord with the ESSP announcement of opportunity: "The Principal Investigator and mission team will have full responsibility for all aspects of the mission, including instrument and spacecraft definition, development, integration, and test; Inunch services (if acquired by mission team) or mission launch interfroes (if launch service is NASA provided); ground system; science operations, mission operations; and data processing and distribution.... It is the intent of NASA to give the PI and the mission team the ability to use their own processes, procedures, and methods to the fullest extent possible." Defining Roles and Responsibilities Despite the AO, the centers running CALIPSO had different positions on project management. At LaRC, the director was interested in Langley gaining the capability for full flight mission project management. Further, as funding for Aeronautics was going down, Langley saw Earth Science as a growing piece in its budget pie. The director wanted to bypass the Program Office at GSFC and report directly to NASA Headquarters, and in fact requested this many times, with the logic that LaRC deserved the chance to prove itself in flight mission project management just as it had over the years for flight instrument management. The GSFC director took the position that only GSFC and JPL should be doing flight missions because of their proven management capability. In support of this view was the fact that LaRC had not managed a full flight mission since the Viking mission to Mars in the 1970s. All of this was in the era of "Faster, Better, Cheaper," a govemment-wide approach intended to make the federal government more efficient in its use of taxpayer dollars. NASA HQ defined the roles and responsibilities as follows: Langley would serve as Mission Office, responsible for development of the science instrument, and Goddard would provide high-level technical and programmatic oversightwith a "light touch" through the Program Office and in its role as the lead center. The project structure was not restricted to NASA. The winning CALIPSO proposal included a partnership with the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), with a co-principal investigator (co-Pl) from the Simon Laplace Institution Through the NASA CNES Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), CNES was responsible for providing a number of components and services, the ground stations, mission operations. tracking, and the assembly, integration, and test of the payload onto the spacecraft bus. In addition, the French agency was responsible for one of the three science instruments (the imaging infrared radiometer, built by Sodem) and for providing the Proteus spacecraft bus, built by the French fimm Alcatel Also on the team was Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. (BATC). Together with Langley. BATC would design and build the CALIPSO lidar the primary instrument on the satellite, in addition, the firm was contracted to deliver a wide-field camera The Ball facility in Boulder, Colorado, was the location for the integration of all three science h instruments. BATC was also responsible for delivering all ground equipment to test, calibrate, and install the payload onto the CNES spacecraft bus. In addition, BATC's responsibilities included supporting LaRC in the interface definition between the payload and the bus and supporting the installation of the payload onto the spacecraft at the Alcatel facilities in Cannes, France. CNES NASA MOU Headquarters Headquarters Program French partners (CNES/Alcatel) Procebus, ground station mission ops Langley (Project Office) Oversight Co- Project + & Punding management Science instrument development Prior Contract relationship Goddard (Program Office) Mession Manager Technical Support Programmatic Oversight Delivery of PL module Ball Aerospace Designments pula (PL) module Figure 2. Organizational Relationships for CALIPSO Mission Mission Management Questions Prior to CALIPSO, Langley had had several successful experiences with Program Office mission managers at other locations, including Headquarters, Johnson Space Center, and Goddard (the CERES instrument was developed at LaRC and flew on the GSFC-led Terra and Aqua missions). It had also engaged in successful cooperative endeavors for instrument deliveries with Russian, French, and Italian firms. During the early phases of CALIPSO, implementation proceeded along relatively normal lines. Goddard followed the "light" approach to oversight: The mission manager (MM) interfaced with the Project Office at Langley, reported to the Program Office at Goddard, and was the conduit for technical support, as requested by Langley. This approach was consistent with other missions in which Langley had been responsible for delivering instruments to Goddard- managed mission contractors. Members of the Goddard team also had questions that troubled them: (1) How were they supposed to provide oversight when they didn't know what all of the partners and contractors were doing? (2) How could they be expected to be responsible for mission management if they die not have authority to manage the overall schedule, and had no confidence in the schedule LaRC put forth? (3) What was the overall responsibility split between the Program Office at GSFC and the Project Office at LaRC? What was the role of the lead center"? (4) Who was HQ holding accountable for mission success? Why wouldn't HQ clarif the roles and responsibilities? Meanwhile, the LaRC team was having a tough time getting the BATC contract in place. Then, in the spring of 1999, the Associate Administrator for Earth Science issued a directive that lead centers should take responsibility for running mission readiness reviews (MRRs) and certifying flight readiness. In this light, the GSFC head felt it was even more necessary for Goddard personnel to be involved in the mission essentially, have more oversight if they were going to be held accountable for the mission. Now it appeared that two organizations, Langley and Goddard, were equally responsible for the CALIPSO mission. Mounting Mistrust Following the new directive from HQ, an increasingly large shadow team" at GSFC hac begun to mirror the work at Langley, to give GSFC confidence in the technical approaches being taken. While the feeling at LaRC was, "They don't trust us," at Goddard there was a sense among some managers that Langley was keeping them in the dark. And within Langley, some team members felt that they didn't have the complete support of their upper management and wondered whether some senior managers in fact didn't really want to get into mission management at all. Still, despite the frustration with the way the program was being managed, many of the LaRC and GSFC team members were working well together and maintaining good relationships. Personnel at both centers put much of the blame on Headquarters. In the international component, the U.S. International Trafficking in Arms Regulation (ITAR) was making the interfaces with the French partner very difficult. Under ITAR restrictions, LaRC found it hard to share information with the CNES Alcatel team, and a times CNES Alcatel representatives were required to leave project meetings when ITAR sensitive material was covered. The French were alternately frustrated and insulted: as a result, CNES refused to provide some reciprocal information when requested. At the technical level, problems were flaring up with both the laser instrument at Ball and the spacecraft. It was known from the beginning that the laser would be a challenge, and now problems with the VCL laser at GSFC had started to surface. LARC felt that its experience on LITE and the LRC/BATC/Fibertek effort developing and testing the Risk Reduction Laser (RRL) more than adequately addressed these laser concerns. GSFC, stinging from the VCL troubles and the laser development problems on the ICESat mission, was much more critical of the CALIPSO Inser development. To make things worse, Ball was in the awkward position of having communication paths, relationships, and loyalties to both LaRC and GSFC, a situation that often made feedback and prioritization difficult and inconsistent. And for both Ball and CNES, the mixed signals emanating from the centers were confusing: Who was really in charge? Review Hurdles Meanwhile, spacecraft issues at Alcatel had pushed back the spacecraft preliminary design review (PDR) until July 2000. This in turn had delayed the combined mission PDR/MDR (mission definition review) from April 2000 to September 2000. More than a year and a half after CALIPSO had been chosen as the only direct selection in the second ESSP mission series- heralding a new era of earth science discoveries from space-the project leaders found themselves on the defensive, as the PDR/MDR approached. The MDR panel was made up of experienced senior project managers and engineers, mostly from GSFC or retired GSFC personnel, with one independent consultant. The reviews, over the course of five days, did not go well. Langley project personnel were heavily criticized on cost and schedule management issues. And with BATC presenting the bulk of the project, the panel was given the overall negative impression that Langley was not in control of its contractor. The panel focused on what it saw as a lack of demonstrated management, especially in laying the proper groundwork with CNES and interfacing with the French agency. The GSFC reviewers embraced the notion that Langley suffered from inexperience with end-to-end flight systems. Goddard was worried about its reputation-it felt responsible for CALIPSO and the LaRC team felt abused by the review process led by Goddard. Two months after the contentious preliminary reviews came the Mission Confirmation Review at NASA HQ, to determine if the project was ready to proceed from the formulation stage to full implementation. Based on the PDR/MDR, the outlook was not favorable. By now serious reservations had surfaced concerning the project plan and implementation. Cognizant of the concerns raised about project viability. HQ delayed the confirmation review for several months, until the spring of 2001. Even after confirmation, cost and schedule proved to be a problem for the next two to three years, with the threat of project termination periodically looming large. Case Study Assignment: Management Crisis or Opportunity As the CALIPSO project struggled forward behind the determination and dedication of the project team, periodic attempts to forge a new and effective management relationship for the good of the mission resulted in still more changes in project program personnel at both LaRC and GSFC. In mid-2002 the project saw the assignment of a new mission manager at Goddard, as well as the change of management figures from both centers. By this time there was an unavoidable sense that a re-plan was needed. The program and project launch readiness schedules differed by about a year. Technical glitches and failures in the instrumentation had occurred. There was friction between all parties. In the spring of 2003 things changed yet again, when the project manager from Langley retired, leaving a leadership void. As one of the management decision makers on CALIPSO, you ponder the state of the mission. Despite the problems so far, is it possible that the situation now presented an opportunity? Could LaRC and GSFC stake out some common ground and find a "One NASA" solution--and get CALIPSO off the ground? It is now spring of 2003 and the associate administrator for ESSP has called a meeting with the directors of Langley and Goddard to try to find a way forward. Your Center Director has asked you to provide recommendations, prior to the meeting, for getting CALIPSO back on the road to mission success. Members of the Goddard team also had questions that troubled them: (1) How were they supposed to provide oversight when they didn't know what all of the partners and contractors were doing? (2) How could they be expected to be responsible for mission management if they die not have authority to manage the overall schedule, and had no confidence in the schedule LaRC put forth? (3) What was the overall responsibility split between the Program Office at GSFC and the Project Office at LaRC? What was the role of the "lead center"? (4) Who was HQ holding accountable for mission success? Why wouldn't HQ clarif the roles and responsibilities? Case Study #2 CALIPSO: Management Challenges within a Complex Project Structure Background The CALIPSO (Cloud Aerosol Lider and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations) mission was designed as a pioneering tool for observing and measuring clouds and aerosols, tiny airborne particles. A better understanding of the role of clouds and aerosols has many applications, from pollution control to weather forecasting CALIPSO was a joint project between NASA and the French space agency CNES The Origins of CALIPSO The CALIPSO mission was proposed by Langley Research Center (LaRC) in 1998 for NASA's second series of missions in the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) program. The CALIPSO lidar instrument was the maturation of a 1993 Shuttle attached instrument experiment called LITE Figure 1. CALIPSO CloudSat Contrasting views of Project Management CALIPSO (first named PICASSO) originated when NASA was in the carly stages of the Principal Investigator (PD) mode of project management, an approach advocated by Agency Administrator Dan Goldin. The premise was that the Pis chosen to load future space science missions would have complete responsibility for the mission, with minimum project guidance or involvement from NASA There were two schools of thought about this new direction One held that the P1 mode would lead to increased competition among NASA centers, ultimately benefiting the overall NASA mission. Specifically, it would develop project management capabilities outside of Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PL), the two centers that did the majority of robotic space flight missions in the agency The other camp argued that only GSFC and JPL should do tlight missions all missions, in this view, should go through one of these two centers if only because replication of project management capabilities was too costly elsewhere CALIPSO, though proposed by Langley and with the P from litter, was funded through Goddard's ISSP Program Office like all other ESSP sons in the ESSP program). Based on the emerging Plmde, huwever, the Program Office was expected to apply only "light touch" management to the mission, allowing the PI and his team to manage the mission. This was in accord with the ESSP announcement of opportunity: "The Principal Investigator and mission team will have full responsibility for all aspects of the mission, including instrument and spacecraft definition, development, integration, and test; Inunch services (if acquired by mission team) or mission launch interfroes (if launch service is NASA provided); ground system; science operations, mission operations; and data processing and distribution.... It is the intent of NASA to give the PI and the mission team the ability to use their own processes, procedures, and methods to the fullest extent possible." Defining Roles and Responsibilities Despite the AO, the centers running CALIPSO had different positions on project management. At LaRC, the director was interested in Langley gaining the capability for full flight mission project management. Further, as funding for Aeronautics was going down, Langley saw Earth Science as a growing piece in its budget pie. The director wanted to bypass the Program Office at GSFC and report directly to NASA Headquarters, and in fact requested this many times, with the logic that LaRC deserved the chance to prove itself in flight mission project management just as it had over the years for flight instrument management. The GSFC director took the position that only GSFC and JPL should be doing flight missions because of their proven management capability. In support of this view was the fact that LaRC had not managed a full flight mission since the Viking mission to Mars in the 1970s. All of this was in the era of "Faster, Better, Cheaper," a govemment-wide approach intended to make the federal government more efficient in its use of taxpayer dollars. NASA HQ defined the roles and responsibilities as follows: Langley would serve as Mission Office, responsible for development of the science instrument, and Goddard would provide high-level technical and programmatic oversightwith a "light touch" through the Program Office and in its role as the lead center. The project structure was not restricted to NASA. The winning CALIPSO proposal included a partnership with the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), with a co-principal investigator (co-Pl) from the Simon Laplace Institution Through the NASA CNES Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), CNES was responsible for providing a number of components and services, the ground stations, mission operations. tracking, and the assembly, integration, and test of the payload onto the spacecraft bus. In addition, the French agency was responsible for one of the three science instruments (the imaging infrared radiometer, built by Sodem) and for providing the Proteus spacecraft bus, built by the French fimm Alcatel Also on the team was Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. (BATC). Together with Langley. BATC would design and build the CALIPSO lidar the primary instrument on the satellite, in addition, the firm was contracted to deliver a wide-field camera The Ball facility in Boulder, Colorado, was the location for the integration of all three science h instruments. BATC was also responsible for delivering all ground equipment to test, calibrate, and install the payload onto the CNES spacecraft bus. In addition, BATC's responsibilities included supporting LaRC in the interface definition between the payload and the bus and supporting the installation of the payload onto the spacecraft at the Alcatel facilities in Cannes, France. CNES NASA MOU Headquarters Headquarters Program French partners (CNES/Alcatel) Procebus, ground station mission ops Langley (Project Office) Oversight Co- Project + & Punding management Science instrument development Prior Contract relationship Goddard (Program Office) Mession Manager Technical Support Programmatic Oversight Delivery of PL module Ball Aerospace Designments pula (PL) module Figure 2. Organizational Relationships for CALIPSO Mission Mission Management Questions Prior to CALIPSO, Langley had had several successful experiences with Program Office mission managers at other locations, including Headquarters, Johnson Space Center, and Goddard (the CERES instrument was developed at LaRC and flew on the GSFC-led Terra and Aqua missions). It had also engaged in successful cooperative endeavors for instrument deliveries with Russian, French, and Italian firms. During the early phases of CALIPSO, implementation proceeded along relatively normal lines. Goddard followed the "light" approach to oversight: The mission manager (MM) interfaced with the Project Office at Langley, reported to the Program Office at Goddard, and was the conduit for technical support, as requested by Langley. This approach was consistent with other missions in which Langley had been responsible for delivering instruments to Goddard- managed mission contractors. Members of the Goddard team also had questions that troubled them: (1) How were they supposed to provide oversight when they didn't know what all of the partners and contractors were doing? (2) How could they be expected to be responsible for mission management if they die not have authority to manage the overall schedule, and had no confidence in the schedule LaRC put forth? (3) What was the overall responsibility split between the Program Office at GSFC and the Project Office at LaRC? What was the role of the lead center"? (4) Who was HQ holding accountable for mission success? Why wouldn't HQ clarif the roles and responsibilities? Meanwhile, the LaRC team was having a tough time getting the BATC contract in place. Then, in the spring of 1999, the Associate Administrator for Earth Science issued a directive that lead centers should take responsibility for running mission readiness reviews (MRRs) and certifying flight readiness. In this light, the GSFC head felt it was even more necessary for Goddard personnel to be involved in the mission essentially, have more oversight if they were going to be held accountable for the mission. Now it appeared that two organizations, Langley and Goddard, were equally responsible for the CALIPSO mission. Mounting Mistrust Following the new directive from HQ, an increasingly large shadow team" at GSFC hac begun to mirror the work at Langley, to give GSFC confidence in the technical approaches being taken. While the feeling at LaRC was, "They don't trust us," at Goddard there was a sense among some managers that Langley was keeping them in the dark. And within Langley, some team members felt that they didn't have the complete support of their upper management and wondered whether some senior managers in fact didn't really want to get into mission management at all. Still, despite the frustration with the way the program was being managed, many of the LaRC and GSFC team members were working well together and maintaining good relationships. Personnel at both centers put much of the blame on Headquarters. In the international component, the U.S. International Trafficking in Arms Regulation (ITAR) was making the interfaces with the French partner very difficult. Under ITAR restrictions, LaRC found it hard to share information with the CNES Alcatel team, and a times CNES Alcatel representatives were required to leave project meetings when ITAR sensitive material was covered. The French were alternately frustrated and insulted: as a result, CNES refused to provide some reciprocal information when requested. At the technical level, problems were flaring up with both the laser instrument at Ball and the spacecraft. It was known from the beginning that the laser would be a challenge, and now problems with the VCL laser at GSFC had started to surface. LARC felt that its experience on LITE and the LRC/BATC/Fibertek effort developing and testing the Risk Reduction Laser (RRL) more than adequately addressed these laser concerns. GSFC, stinging from the VCL troubles and the laser development problems on the ICESat mission, was much more critical of the CALIPSO Inser development. To make things worse, Ball was in the awkward position of having communication paths, relationships, and loyalties to both LaRC and GSFC, a situation that often made feedback and prioritization difficult and inconsistent. And for both Ball and CNES, the mixed signals emanating from the centers were confusing: Who was really in charge? Review Hurdles Meanwhile, spacecraft issues at Alcatel had pushed back the spacecraft preliminary design review (PDR) until July 2000. This in turn had delayed the combined mission PDR/MDR (mission definition review) from April 2000 to September 2000. More than a year and a half after CALIPSO had been chosen as the only direct selection in the second ESSP mission series- heralding a new era of earth science discoveries from space-the project leaders found themselves on the defensive, as the PDR/MDR approached. The MDR panel was made up of experienced senior project managers and engineers, mostly from GSFC or retired GSFC personnel, with one independent consultant. The reviews, over the course of five days, did not go well. Langley project personnel were heavily criticized on cost and schedule management issues. And with BATC presenting the bulk of the project, the panel was given the overall negative impression that Langley was not in control of its contractor. The panel focused on what it saw as a lack of demonstrated management, especially in laying the proper groundwork with CNES and interfacing with the French agency. The GSFC reviewers embraced the notion that Langley suffered from inexperience with end-to-end flight systems. Goddard was worried about its reputation-it felt responsible for CALIPSO and the LaRC team felt abused by the review process led by Goddard. Two months after the contentious preliminary reviews came the Mission Confirmation Review at NASA HQ, to determine if the project was ready to proceed from the formulation stage to full implementation. Based on the PDR/MDR, the outlook was not favorable. By now serious reservations had surfaced concerning the project plan and implementation. Cognizant of the concerns raised about project viability. HQ delayed the confirmation review for several months, until the spring of 2001. Even after confirmation, cost and schedule proved to be a problem for the next two to three years, with the threat of project termination periodically looming large. Case Study Assignment: Management Crisis or Opportunity As the CALIPSO project struggled forward behind the determination and dedication of the project team, periodic attempts to forge a new and effective management relationship for the good of the mission resulted in still more changes in project program personnel at both LaRC and GSFC. In mid-2002 the project saw the assignment of a new mission manager at Goddard, as well as the change of management figures from both centers. By this time there was an unavoidable sense that a re-plan was needed. The program and project launch readiness schedules differed by about a year. Technical glitches and failures in the instrumentation had occurred. There was friction between all parties. In the spring of 2003 things changed yet again, when the project manager from Langley retired, leaving a leadership void. As one of the management decision makers on CALIPSO, you ponder the state of the mission. Despite the problems so far, is it possible that the situation now presented an opportunity? Could LaRC and GSFC stake out some common ground and find a "One NASA" solution--and get CALIPSO off the ground? It is now spring of 2003 and the associate administrator for ESSP has called a meeting with the directors of Langley and Goddard to try to find a way forward. Your Center Director has asked you to provide recommendations, prior to the meeting, for getting CALIPSO back on the road to mission success. Members of the Goddard team also had questions that troubled them: (1) How were they supposed to provide oversight when they didn't know what all of the partners and contractors were doing? (2) How could they be expected to be responsible for mission management if they die not have authority to manage the overall schedule, and had no confidence in the schedule LaRC put forth? (3) What was the overall responsibility split between the Program Office at GSFC and the Project Office at LaRC? What was the role of the "lead center"? (4) Who was HQ holding accountable for mission success? Why wouldn't HQ clarif the roles and responsibilities