<p dir="ltr">The deep human drive to explore and inhabit new frontiers underpins the emerging field of space architecture, as evidenced by the proliferation of diverse design concepts and growing momentum in extraterrestrial construction. However, the endeavor of building off-world environments remains in its infancy, facing numerous challenges due to remoteness, novelty, complexity, and other inherent characteristics. Significant technical and methodological gaps exist between visionary designs and the practical engineering and management intricacies of complex projects. These gaps must be addressed to overcome the challenges in extraterrestrial construction.</p><p dir="ltr">The field is limited by the scarcity of both failures and successes in extraterrestrial construction from which to draw lessons. Furthermore, the understanding of construction system failures is constrained by the limited application of systems perspectives in construction safety literature. Existing accident causation models in system safety literature are ill-suited for describing construction system failures.</p><p dir="ltr">The overall objective of this research is to inform the planning and design of extraterrestrial construction to mitigate the risk of building and installing defective systems in space. To achieve this goal, the research process followed iterative cycles of failure case studies, extracting insights through the lens of a new accident causation model. The cycles of model application evolved through three major stages: (1) developing a model specifically tailored to construction system failures, (2) deriving concepts and principles for interpreting the model depictions, and (3) compiling lessons from a systematically selected set of failure cases for planners, designers, and key stakeholders of future extraterrestrial construction projects.</p><p dir="ltr">Following a comprehensive literature review, this study developed an accident model termed the framed-and-layered accident pathogen propagation (FLAPP) model. The basic concept of the model consists of frames representing the temporal dimension, layers depicting the hierarchical aspects of the sociotechnical framework of construction projects, and graphical notation illustrating the sequence of defective processes and pathogens embedded in the constructed artifact.</p><p dir="ltr">To interpret the graphical illustrations of failure cases, the study introduced the concept of pathogen threads to describe multiple sequences of defective processes ultimately interacting with the physical artifact. To further explain the underlying mechanisms of how design decisions incubate into system failures, the concept of design-induced strains was proposed. This concept represents the lingering effects that design solutions can have on physical artifacts and downstream organizational processes. Additionally, categories of inadequate organizational factors from the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) were incorporated to explain the underlying causes within project organizations that allowed the mishandling of physical and organizational strains.</p><p dir="ltr">To evaluate the applicability of the FLAPP model and observe general trends in system failures across various contexts, the study selected failure cases attributable to embedded pathogens with sufficient available information. Ensuring that the case set included diverse cases and covered all specific technical challenges of extraterrestrial construction, the selection resulted in a set of 40 cases comprising 10 space systems, 13 buildings, 10 bridges and tunnels, and 7 systems in specialized environments. Results highlighted typical and exceptional cases among different systems and the general trends of occurrence prevalence of concept instances among different system contexts (space, building, bridge/tunnel, specialized environment) and duration ranges (short, medium, long). The comparison of Earth-based and space-based systems revealed several critical questions for the space domain: how to ensure, maintain, and improve the reliability and quality of unique and site-specific systems; how to establish and enforce minimum quality standards to reduce unintended physical strains; and how to prepare for extended project timelines with dynamic and transient organizational networks.</p><p dir="ltr">Future research should address the theoretical and methodological limitations of the FLAPP model by extending it to investigation methods and risk assessment techniques. Additionally, the failure case study approach should be enhanced by expanding the case set, exploring source documents, and applying additional analysis approaches. This dissertation concludes by demonstrating that guidance and principles with discipline-specific vocabulary can be derived by referencing documented best practices in systems engineering and project management.</p><p><br></p>