June 16, 2015

Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Space Missions Using GoldSim

Posted by Rick Kossik

Many of you are very familiar with how GoldSim has been used for many years to carry out simulations of environmental systems, such as mines, water supply systems and hazardous waste sites. However, because GoldSim was designed as a flexible probabilistic simulation system, there are many cool and interesting applications in a wide variety of other arenas.  Perhaps one of the most interesting is the use of GoldSim for probabilistic risks assessments of space missions.

The NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) has been using GoldSim for such applications since 2007 (the NASA Johnson Space Center also uses GoldSim). ARC has applied GoldSim to a number of interesting risk assessment studies, several of which are summarized below:

These applications all make use of the GoldSim Reliability Module, which was originally developed with a NASA- funded Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This module allows you to probabilistically simulate and analyze the reliability and performance of complex engineered systems over time.  In addition to space systems, it has also been applied to other applications, such as evaluating the performance of photovoltaic system designs and reliability throughput modeling for industrial facilities. The Reliability Module Learning Edition is included with all versions of GoldSim (at no extra cost), so you can easily explore and experiment with this powerful module.

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