Planning for the expected, as well as the unexpected.

Unfortunately the Artemis 1 spacecraft has suffered another delay on the launchpad, as NASA engineers spotted a fuel leak hours before lift off. Artemis is the first step in an ambitious plan to put humans on the moon for the first time in 50 years. As well as billions of dollars at stake, the programme is an important part of the ‘Gateway’ programme for human spaceflight and so the engineers have to be absolutely sure that everything is going to plan before they press the button to launch.

I was recently reading the autobiography of Tim Peake - the first British astronaut to visit the International Space Station. It’s a fascinating read, particularly the parts where, with his colleagues, he rehearses the most exciting part of his mission - a spacewalk to repair the space station’s power supply. Exciting and dangerous.

He recalls how he practiced again and again every hand and foot movement around the outside of the space station, planning for every misstep that could spell disaster. He and his colleagues also rehearsed crisis situations - what if some space debris hits? Or something goes wrong with the air supply. In reality, during the second part of the spacewalk Tim noticed that his Russian colleague’s helmet was beginning to fill up with water. Of course, this eventuality had been planned for and the two astronauts effected the contingency plan quickly and safely, abandoning the remaining tasks and getting back into the ISS.

Crisis management is not just about dealing with the unexpected - it’s also about managing situations that you hope aren’t going to happen, but just might. We have worked with a number of organisations over the years on ‘contingency’ crisis management. This involves working on ‘what if?' plans for important projects such as office moves or system transitions. These organisations hope these contingency plans will never be needed, but where the project is so crucial planning for the worst makes sense.

We wish all those involved in the Artemis 1 project the best of wishes for the successful launch.