Skip to content

Operational medicine

CASE-55-DMedical Fitness for Extravehicular Activity (EVA)

Authored demonstration. Not a live employer result.

01 · Situation

The screening was ordered. The result was never documented.

Illustrative pre-EVA cardiovascular screening is required before an EVA; the result is never documented before the EVA proceeds.

02 · Evidence

What the record holds.

  1. E1Screening order, three days before the EVA

    Verified · Day −3

  2. E2Screening result — not located; the illustrative mission protocol requires this confirmation before the EVA

    Not located · Due before Day 0

  3. E3EVA schedule confirmed

    Verified · Day 0

  4. E4EVA conducted as scheduled

    Verified · Day 0

03 · Obligations / Owners

The chain of responsibility.

  1. 01

    Flight surgeon (order screening)

  2. 02

    Crew medical officer (document result and confirm fitness before EVA, per the illustrative requirement that confirmation precede the EVA)

04 · Accountability Break

Where the chain broke.

The fitness-confirmation gate was not enforced before the activity proceeded. Whether that gate should have stopped the EVA is exactly what this record puts at issue.

05 · Next Action

The corrective obligation.

Documented fitness confirmation becomes a hard gate — no schedule lock without it.

06 · Economic Boundary

Where the evidence stops.

Not applicable — this is a safety-gate record; no cost dimension is asserted.

07 · Engine Answer

What the Engine can and cannot establish.

The crew medical officer was required, under this demonstration’s illustrative mission protocol, to document a fitness confirmation before the EVA. The record shows the screening was ordered on Day −3, no result is evidenced, and the EVA proceeded on schedule on Day 0. The Engine can demonstrate that the activity proceeded without a documented fitness confirmation the protocol required. It cannot establish why the confirmation was never produced, whether the crew member was in fact fit, or whether proceeding without it was itself a defensible decision — that is precisely what this record puts at issue.

The activity proceeded on schedule. The reviewed record does not contain the confirmation the protocol required.