Man-rating

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Man-rating or Man-rated is a term used to describe the certification of a rocket or airplane as worthy of transporting humans. There is a widespread misconception that designing and operating a man-rated rocket is substantially more difficult than doing so for a rocket which carries cargo.

Curiously, the space shuttle doesn't meet NASA's established criteria for man-rating.^{[citation needed]}

An airplane or rocket is considered as a man-rated vehicle if it satisfies a certain threshold of safety for its human occupants. This may include redundancy of certain components and certification by regulatory agencies. For rockets, launch vehicle reliability in the range of 98 percent probability for launch success and crew survival is good.