”Paris, We Have a Problem’—with Interfaces

ELDO’s technical troubles traced in most cases to problems with inter­faces: component boundaries that were also organizational boundaries. Here ELDO’s inability to either impose standards or ensure communication among its engineering groups produced its logical result: failure. ELDO engineers and managers soon recognized that they had a major problem with inter­faces and communications. Through the Secretariat and national organiza­tions they tried to make this point to the politicians who governed ELDO. Despite efforts to improve ELDO’s communications and systems engineering, ELDO’s basic flaw was a lack of authority that no piecemeal measures could repair. Symptoms of this problem became evident first in cost overruns and schedule slips, then in flight failures.

In 1964 and 1965, the first test flights of Britain’s Blue Streak were decep­tively promising.38 DeHavillands’s first stage design incorporated several years of design experience prior to the formation of ELDO, as well as American techniques from the Atlas program, which itself had developed for a num­ber of years before Britain acquired some of its technologies. Because the first tests flew only the British first stage, they did not involve interfaces with any other stage. Because a single government organization with prior rocket and missile experience managed Blue Streak, and because firms experienced with these technologies and with each other built it, communications were not a problem. Blue Streak’s success was not to be repeated.

Problems soon appeared in the interfaces between the rocket stages and the organizations responsible for them. Under ELDO agreements of 1963, mem­ber states divided interface responsibility by having the lower stage contractor responsible for interfaces between any two stages. Thus the British were re­sponsible for the interface between the first and second stages, the French for the interface between the second and third stages, and the Germans for the third stage-test satellite interface. Meetings in 1965 further defined interface procedures, specifying that the Interface Design Authority (the lower stage contractor) would freeze the design, make the information available to all parties, and provide for hardware inspection. The Interface Design Authority would submit a Certificate of Design to ELDO to certify the correctness of the interface. However, the scheme had a fatal flaw: ‘‘It was not the intention that an Interface Authority should do again work already allocated and being per­formed by another Design Authority. The Interface Design Authority would therefore base his design declaration on statements, made by the other Design Authorities concerned, that the relevant specifications had been met.’’39

The contractor documenting the interface merely ensured that the other organizations involved provided the appropriate documentation, but no or­ganization analyzed both sides of the interface for discrepancies. ELDO docu­mented the interface specifications and trusted contractors on each side ofthe interface to abide by them. Without anyone checking both sides, misunder­standings about specifications went unnoticed until the organizations tried to connect the stages or test them in flight.

Misunderstandings became painfully evident the moment contractors tried to connect hardware. In an early test of the interface between the French sec­ond stage and the German third stage, the structure failed because of the wrong kinds of connecting bolts. When the ELDO Secretariat decided to make changes to the French second stage, the French complained, question­ing who had the ‘‘power to impose a solution.’’ In another case, the Germans developed a table to mimic the structural interface of the Italian test satellite ‘‘before the Italian Authorities had completed their examination [of] the re­quirements.’’ This led to a mismatch between the assumed size ofthe connect­ing ring and the actual ring later designed by the Italians, and the Germans had to scrap their hardware and build a new table.40

Complaints about communications and integration problems reached the ELDO Council through member state delegations, leading to a study of ELDO’s organization in early 1966. Belgian engineers, who had to collect data from all ELDO members to design the telemetry system, were the first to con­front the interface problem. They suggested that the Secretariat be given sub­stantially more authority in a two-level management scheme. The first level would be a study bureau to establish specifications. It would be at the national level but under the “functional authority’’ of the ELDO Secretariat, and it would have authority to approve modifications and make technical decisions. Through control of the national bureaus, the Secretariat would impose con­sistent standards and processes. At a higher level in the organization, the Sec­retariat would have greater power, ‘‘corresponding in the English sense to the word ‘control’ (monitoring plus decision authority).’’ Belgian delegates pro­posed to staff this level with seventy engineers, with seven ‘‘inspector gen­erals’’ from each national program under the direction of a management di­rector. The engineers would focus on integration problems and look for future problems, while the seven inspector generals and the seven national program managers would meet with the Council to discuss problems at least every other month.41

Countering the Belgian proposal, the French proposed an Industrial Inte­grating Group that would exchange information among the government and industrial firms. The French solution provided information but did not give the Secretariat the power to enforce solutions. The Industrial Integrating Group would collect information and pass its recommendations to the Sec­retariat, which in turn could recommend changes with the member states and the ELDO Council. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Industrial Integrating Group would be led by SEREB, the French organization that coordinated the French rocket program.42

In matters political, French proposals carried more weight. German dele­gates supported the French because they did not want a strong project man­ager. Not wanting the project manager to have financial control, the Dutch supported the Germans. The ELDO Council decided to appoint a project manager for Europa I but to strictly limited the manager’s authority. Council members directed, ‘‘The Project Manager shall remain within the approved technical objectives, timescale, programme cost to completion and total ap­propriations under each country chapter in the current budget.’’ The manager would have to ‘‘pay due regard to the opinions and advice of other directors, but the decisions would be his own responsibility.’’ The Council also required that he ‘‘act in agreement with the Member States concerned regarding bud­get transfers.’’43 Without authority over budgets, the project manager could take no significant actions without agreement from the member states.

Along with appointing a project manager, the ELDO Council requested that the Secretariat investigate program management procedures and agreed with ‘‘the necessity of adopting a system for providing delegations and the Secretariat with continuous and full preventative information on the prog­ress of the current programmes.’’ Secretary-General Carrobio reported back, agreeing that a ‘‘Corps of Inspectors’’ should review ELDO and make rec­ommendations concerning processes, structure, and management. Carrobio also proposed an “integrating group set up by industry and subordinate to the Secretariat’s authority.’’ Such a group would enhance ELDO’s position.44

The French proposal prevailed. In July 1966, the ELDO Council approved the Europa II vehicle,45 which could place a small communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit, and agreed to create an integration group, known as Societe d’Etude et d’Integration de Systemes Spatiaux (SETIS [Company for the Study and Integration of Space Systems]), to strengthen the Secre­tariat. Beginning as a division of SEREB, SETIS had the same analysis and integration functions and was then spun off into a separate organization.46

SETIS had only advisory capacity, reporting to the ELDO Project Manage­ment Directorate, which the Council also created at that time. Under the new system, the Project Management Directorate assigned project managers to Europa I and Europa II. Each country selected its own project manager, who reported to the national organization and to the ELDO project manager, who distributed information to member states through the Scientific and Techni­cal Committee. SETIS worked only on Europa II because Europa I was soon to begin integration testing. For Europa II, the Secretariat now had authority to place contracts directly with industry. ELDO’s Europa I project manager remained virtually powerless.47

Secretary-General Carrobio expected that SETIS would strengthen ELDO’s technical capabilities. Because the SETIS engineers came from Europa II con­tractors, SETIS would ensure better communication between ELDO and the manufacturers ‘‘by means of direct contacts.’’ SETIS planned to hire forty engineers for the Europa II program and sixty more after that, arranged in three divisions: PAS Vehicle (Europa II) Development, Planning and Infor­mation, and System Integration. Despite SETIS’s apparently broad charter, its power was strictly limited; it could not amend contracts or change costs, schedules, or technical performance except through the Secretariat. Because the Secretariat did not have much power in these matters, SETIS could only analyze information that member states and their contractors were willing to provide.48

In December 1966, the chairman of the Corps of Inspectors delivered his committee’s report, which described ‘‘the problems ofthe interfaces’’ and ‘‘the role played in this matter by the Secretariat.’’ The report noted, ‘‘The Ger-

man Authorities and the German industrials repeatedly stressed the difficul­ties which have resulted from an incomplete solution of the interface prob­lems, which they attribute to gaps in the methods of coordination.’’ A number of interface problems bedeviled the project, and the Corps of Inspectors con­cluded that the Secretariat should define its methods and intentions to deal with interface issues.49

Carrobio responded the next month, first to specific problems noted by the Corps of Inspectors. The Secretariat had ‘‘played a determining role in recon­ciling the viewpoints’’ of the French and Germans in making design changes after a test failure in February 1966. However, in the case of problems with the German third stage, neither the German authorities nor ELDO could con­trol foreign suppliers for third stage components. Even here, Carrobio stated, ‘‘These were not so much a matter of principles as of practical difficulties due to slippages in the development programme of Germany’s foreign suppliers.’’ Because German contractor Bolkow had no control over the suppliers, Carro – bio argued, ‘‘It is then up to the Secretariat to intervene and endeavour to find and win acceptance for the least harmful compromise, and this has been done on all occasions.’’ Carrobio believed that only minor fixes to ELDO’s organization were necessary, not a complete overhaul.50

ELDO member state delegates took some time to approve the new pro­cesses and procedures proposed by the Corps of Inspectors. After an ELDO visit to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to learn more about project management techniques, the ELDO Council finally ratified the new program management procedures in September 1967. SETIS came into official exis­tence on January 1,1968. Both project management and SETIS strengthened ELDO’s Europa II project. Europa I remained hampered by indirect contract­ing and a lack of authority.51

As ELDO, the national governments, and the contractors started to build and integrate Europa I, they found numerous communication and interface problems. Complaints bubbled up from the contractors through the national delegations to the ELDO Council, leading to an enhancement of ELDO’s project management capability. The new procedures gave the Europa II proj­ect manager the authority to make direct contracts and gave him a staff that could monitor events more closely. However, even for Europa II, the Secre­tariat still had limited authority to modify contracts, costs, and schedules. Un­fortunately, ELDO’s immediate future hinged on Europa I and its less effective organization.