Manned missions to Mars: Minimizing risks of failure

• Reliability is conceived at the design stage.
• Parametric risk modeling is a must for a risk driven decision making process.
• “Human-in-the-loop”: PDfR and likelihood of a mission success.
• Probability of failure as a suitable reliability criterion.

Some major risks-of-failure issues for the future manned missions to Mars are discussed, with an objective to address criteria for making such missions possible, successful, safe and cost-effective. The following astronautical and instrumentation-and-equipment-reliability related aspects of the missions are considered: redundancies and backup strategies; costs; assessed probability of failure as a suitable reliability criterion for the instrumentation (equipment); probabilistic assessment of the likelihood of the mission success and safety. It is concluded that parametric risk modeling is a must for a risk-driven decision-making process.