In January 2007, the NASA Administrator and Associate Administrator for the ExplorationSystems Mission Directorate chartered the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) todesign, build, and test a full-scale Composite Crew Module (CCM). The overall goal of theCCM project was to develop a team from the NASA family with hands-on experience incomposite design, manufacturing, and testing in anticipation of future space exploration systemsbeing made of composite materials. The CCM project was planned to run concurrently with theOrion project's baseline metallic design within the Constellation Program so that features couldbe compared and discussed without inducing risk to the overall Program.The materials and process activities were prioritized based on a rapid prototype approach. Thisapproach focused developmental activities on design details with greater risk and uncertainty,such as out-of-autoclave joining, over some of the more traditional lamina and laminate buildingblock levels. While process development and associated building block testing were performed,several anomalies were still observed at the full-scale level due to interactions between processrobustness and manufacturing scale-up.This paper describes the process anomalies that were encountered during the CCM developmentand the subsequent root cause investigations that led to the final design solutions. Theseinvestigations highlight the importance of full-scale developmental work early in the schedule ofa complex composite design/build project.
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