INNOVATION
Balancing Innovation With Risk For the engineering team, building Axiom Station, or any other space-going hardware, means identifying and mitigat- ing thousands of potential risks, both obvious and obscure. What happens if micro-meteorites
can’t break, but then we’re prob- ably making something that’s complex, heavy, and expensive. We can duplicate parts, creating redundancies, or we can care- fully consider where to place the part so it’s at less risk.” Sometimes, the team combines strategies, such as placing dupli-
expense. The more efficient strategy is to make the com- puters more resilient, so that if something goes wrong, they can be quickly rebooted, just like any consumer model. The engineers mix and match shielding, redundancy, and placement to create the most cost-effective and safe systems. The process requires continuous testing and iteration, looking at how each part responds to vac- uum, vibration, radiation, and temperature extremes. “We’ll take it colder or hotter than it’ll ever see in practice,” says Motter. “Sometimes, we test how hot it will go before failing. By understanding those bounds, we can assure ourselves the parts will survive and keep running.” Robust insurance coverage helps make emerging innova- tion possible. Complex missions and equipment can be challeng- ing to insure, but the market has always been willing to under- write all types of companies and risks, says Patton Kline, Aviation & Space, managing director at Marsh, New York. “Insurance is a key enabler for the space industry and overall space economy. Space policies are designed to cover the techni- cal risk from launch through the satellite lifetime,” Kline says.
For the engineering team, building Axiom Station, or any other space-going hardware, means identifying and mitigating thousands of potential risks, both obvious and obscure.
cate parts in different parts of the station. One area might face greater risk of encountering micrometeorites or solar radia- tion. The latter can play havoc on computer systems, turning them into expensive bricks. One approach is to simply shield the station’s computers so noth- ing harmful can get through. But again, this adds weight and
hit the station, radiation zaps a computer, or the platform loses power? What constitutes a manageable vs. catastrophic risk, and what measures must the team take to mitigate the first and eliminate the second? “There are several ways we can control risk,” says Motter. “We can make a part so robust it just
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