Spacecraft Reliability Calculations Using Statistical Regularities in Occurrences of Failures in Devices, Units and Assemblies During Their Operation

Abstract

The paper addresses reliability analysis of manned spacecraft with the use of statistical regularities in in-flight failures of their devices, units and assemblies. It formulates validity criteria for using a device failure in reliability analysis, proposes a method for analyzing and classifying failures which enables factoring in different types of failures in reliability analyses. It considers a hypothesis of the absence of statistically significant differences in probabilities of individual valid failures and demonstrates the feasibility of its adoption with the use of dispersion analysis. A method is developed for evaluating product reliability using a functional relationship between reliability and the number of failures occurring in flight which makes it possible to significantly simplify reliability analysis for complex products, to establish the number of in-flight failures that is acceptable from the standpoint of the product reliability requirements, to study various product architectures from the standpoint of reliability criteria. It proposes a method for evaluating the lower boundary for the probability of manned spacecraft completing their missions based on the failure modes, effects and criticality analysis, and demonstrates the feasibility of optimizing the product redundancy scheme based on the fault tolerance requirements. Key words: manned spacecraft, flight, failure, fault tolerance, classification of failures, reliability, probability of failure-free operation, statistical analysis, dispersion analysis.