Which hazard category is least severe, resulting in little to no mission impact?

• A. Catastrophic
• B. Critical
• C. Marginal
• D. Negligible

Answer: (D)

Understanding hazard severity levels helps you prioritize risk control. The least severe category, Negligible, describes hazards that would cause little to no mission impact. In practice, this means a situation that might cause a minor nuisance but does not impair the ability to achieve objectives, and it typically requires little to no extra effort or resources to recover. The other levels describe progressively greater impacts: Marginal indicates some degradation in mission capability, Critical implies significant degradation or loss of mission effectiveness, and Catastrophic denotes complete mission failure or the loss of life or major system capability. So Negligible best fits the idea of little to no mission impact.