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This NASA Technical Standard provides medical requirements and clinical procedures designed to ensure crew health and safety and occupational longevity of NASA career astronauts. This NASA Technical Standard used for selection and annual recertification of astronauts reflects the medical requirements to successfully complete specific mission tasks and the multifaceted training and performance required of a NASA astronaut. These include, but are not limited to, flying in high performance aircraft, exposure to hypobaric and hyperbaric conditions, exposure to unique environments (e.g., microgravity), and conducting specialized operations (e.g., extra-vehicular activities, robotic arm operations). NASA policy for establishing standards to protect the health and safety of crew and for providing health and medical programs for astronauts during all phases of space flight is authorized by NPD 1000.3 - The NASA Organization, and by NPD 8900.5B - NASA Health and Medical Policy for Human Space Exploration. This document includes medical evaluations for private astronauts and NASA Suborbital Research Specialist (NSRS). Private astronauts are defined as a crew member who is not a NASA career (U.S. government) astronaut or international partner astronaut. NASA Suborbital Research Specialist is an individual who is employed by NASA or funded by NASA to conduct research, technology testing, training, or other activities onboard a sub-orbital vehicle. This excludes those individuals who are the commercially employed crew of the suborbital vehicle. This NASA Technical Standard also provides mission specific medical evaluations which include both clinical and occupational requirements that may be tailored for future missions.
This NASA technical standard provides uniform engineering and technical requirements for processes, procedures, practices, and methods that have been endorsed as standard for NASA facilities, programs, and projects, including requirements for selecting, applying, and designing hardware for manufacturability and reliability. This standard establishes NASA workmanship requirements, and clarifications, additions, and exceptions to requirements specified in NASA adopted industry consensus standards identified as required for use by NPR 8735.2, Hardware Quality Assurance Program Requirements for Programs and Projects
In recent years, the legislative and executive branches of the federal government have pushed to make government more efficient and responsive to the needs of the marketplace. One of these initiatives, Public Law 104-113, also known as the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995 (NTTAA), is designed to accelerate technology transfer to industry and promote government-industry partnership. Summarized, NTTAA states that '... all Federal agencies and departments shall use technical standards that are developed or adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies, using such technical standards as a means to carry out policy objectives or activities determined by the agencies and departments. Government agencies must now determine if their in-house requirement-setting activities are sufficiently unique that no public interest is served by having them adopted by a voluntary consensus organization (VCO), or if not, to use or develop voluntary consensus standards. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is chartered by the law to monitor federal agency progress and report the results to Congress. In response to NTTAA, agency-wide oxygen and hydrogen safety standards sponsored by the NASA Headquarters (HQ) Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) were obvious choices for early adoption by VCOs. In 1996, HQ sought assistance from the Johnson Space Center (JSC) White Sands Test Facility (WSTF), the technical lead for development of these safety standards, to evaluate their adoption by VCOs. At that time, WSTF-developed propellant hazards manuals were likewise identified for possible VCO adoption. Subsequently, WSTF was asked to represent NASA for development of an international ISO safety standard for hydrogen use. Concurrent with these WSTF standards activities are related efforts to develop and publish propellant hazards analysis protocols and safety courses for the industrial, propellant use of oxygen, hydrogen, and hypergols. This paper reports on these efforts and describes WSTF's overall voluntary consensus standards program to coordinate the interchange of NASA's propellant hazards and safety information with industry.
Systems Engineering is fundamental to good engineering, which in turn depends on the integration and application of engineering lessons learned. Thus, good Systems Engineering also depends on systems engineering lessons learned from within the aerospace industry being documented and applied. About ten percent of the engineering lessons learned documented in the NASA Lessons Learned Information System are directly related to Systems Engineering. A key issue associated with lessons learned datasets is the communication and incorporation of this information into engineering processes. As part of the NASA Technical Standards Program activities, engineering lessons learned datasets have been identified from a number of sources. These are being searched and screened for those having a relation to Technical Standards. This paper will address some of these Systems Engineering Lessons Learned and how they are being related to Technical Standards within the NASA Technical Standards Program, including linking to the Agency's Interactive Engineering Discipline Training Courses and the life cycle for a flight vehicle development program.
Aerospace Meteorology provides the identification of that aspect of meteorology that is concerned with the definition and modeling of atmospheric parameters for use in aerospace vehicle development, mission planning and operational capability assessments. One of the principal sources of this information is the NASA-HDBK-1001 "Terrestrial Environment (Climatic) Criteria Handbook for Use in Aerospace Vehicle Development'. This handbook was approved by the NASA Chief Engineer in 2000 as a NASA Preferred Technical Standard . Its technical contents were based on natural environment statistics/models and criteria developed mostly in the early 1990's. A task was approved to completely update the handbook to reflect the current state-of-the-art in the various terrestrial environment climatic areas.
This document presents general recommended standards for documenting scientific and technical information (STI) from a number of scientific and engineering disciplines. It is a companion publication to NASA SP-7084, "Grammar, Punctuation, and Capitalization: A Handbook for Technical Writers and Editors," and is intended primarily for STI personnel and publishing personnel within NASA and who support NASA STI publishing. Section 1 gives an overview of NASA STI publications. Section 2 discusses figure preparation considerations. Section 3 covers table design, and Section 4 gives information about symbols and math related to STI publishing. Section 5 covers units of measure. Section 6 discusses References, and Section 7 discusses electronic documents. Section 8 covers information related to the review of STI prior to publication; this covers both technical and dissemination review and approval, including data quality. Section 9 discusses printing and dissemination related to STI, and Section 10 gives abbreviations and acronyms used in the document.
This NASA Technical Standard is directed toward materials and processes (M&P) used in the design, fabrication, and testing of space program flight hardware for NASA, including but not limited to crewed, uncrewed, robotic, launch vehicle, lander, in-space and surface systems, and spacecraft program/project hardware elements. All spaceflight hardware is covered by the M&P requirements of this document, including vendor-designed, off-the-shelf, and vendor-furnished items. M&P used in interfacing ground support equipment (GSE), test equipment, hardware processing equipment, hardware packaging, and hardware shipment is covered by the M&P requirements of this NASA Technical Standard only to the extent required to prevent damage to or contamination of spaceflight hardware (see section 4). M&P used in NASA aircraft and aircraft operations are not covered by the M&P requirements of this document.
The interdisciplinary nature of microbiome research, coupled with the generation of complex multi-omics data, makes knowledge sharing challenging. The Strengthening the Organization and Reporting of Microbiome Studies (STORMS) guidelines provide a checklist for the reporting of study information, experimental design and analytical methods within a scientific manuscript on human microbiome research. Here, in this Consensus Statement, we present the standards for technical reporting in environmental and host-associated microbiome studies (STREAMS) guidelines. The guidelines expand on STORMS and include 67 items to support the reporting and review of environmental (for example, terrestrial, aquatic, atmospheric and engineered), synthetic and non-human host-associated microbiome studies in a standardized and machine-actionable manner. Based on input from 248 researchers spanning 28 countries, we provide detailed guidance, including comparisons with STORMS, and case studies that demonstrate the usage of the STREAMS guidelines. In conclusion, STREAMS, like STORMS, will be a living community resource updated by the Consortium with consensus-building input of the broader community.
NASA now requires all flight hardware projects to develop and implement a Foreign Object Damage (FOD) Prevention Program. With the increasing use of composite and bonded structures, NASA now also requires an Impact Damage Protection Plan for these items. In 2009, Marshall Space Flight Center released an interim directive that required all Center organizations to comply with FOD protocols established by on-site Projects, to include prevention of impact damage. The MSFC Technical Standards Control Board authorized the development of a new MSFC technical standard for FOD Prevention.
The definition of X3B5, where it fits in the national and international standards development process, and how it interfaces and influences the world community of standards developers are provided. Details concerning the focus of the committee, how it operates, and what the group sees as the future trends in the area of interchange standards utilizing the multifaceted, ubiquitous magnetic tape are presented.
This handbook provides guidance to mission providers and Planetary Protection (PP) practitioners on implementing PP measures for both robotic and crewed space missions. This handbook represents major updates to PP practices since a previously drafted handbook from 2010. In 2017, NASA reorganized the Office of Planetary Protection (OPP) from the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) to a Technical Authority (TA) within the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA). With this organizational change came a complete overhaul of NASA’s PP policy and technical standards. This handbook reflects the latest NASA PP policy updates in NPR 8715.24, Planetary Protection Provisions for Robotic Extraterrestrial Missions and technical requirements of NASA-STD-8719.27, Implementing Planetary Protection Requirements for Space Flight. This handbook is a companion document to the NPR and technical standard and provides guidance, best practices, background information, and advice for practitioners to consider when implementing PP on NASA missions and NASA-partnered missions.
The purpose of this NASA Technical Standard is to provide the technical requirements for the NPR 8715.5, Range Flight Safety Program, in regards to protection of the public, the NASA workforce, and property as it pertains to risk analysis, Flight Safety Systems (FSS), and range flight operations. This standard is approved for use by NASA Headquarters and NASA Centers, including Component Facilities and Technical and Service Support Centers, and may be cited in contract, program, and other Agency documents as a technical requirement. This standard may also apply to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or to other contractors, grant recipients, or parties to agreements to the extent specified or referenced in their contracts, grants, or agreements, when these organizations conduct or participate in missions that involve range flight operations as defined by NPR 8715.5.1.2.2 In this standard, all mandatory actions (i.e., requirements) are denoted by statements containing the term “shall.”1.3 TailoringTailoring of this standard for application to a specific program or project shall be formally documented as part of program or project requirements and approved by the responsible Technical Authority in accordance with NPR 8715.3, NASA General Safety Program Requirements.
This paper considers how to improve the reliability and maintainability (R&M) of future NASA space life support systems. If these systems are procured under an industry contract, defining the R&M requirements would take precedence over providing technical guidance on designing the system. Imposing a specific R&M design could be over constraining. However, the mission may define the overall R&M approach, as the International Space Station (ISS) did by requiring Orbital Replacement Units (ORUs). Before defining the R&M requirements for the next mission, the life support research program should understand and plan the R&M approach. The recent NASA technical standard on R&M has moved away from requiring specific R&M activities during each of the traditional project phases to instead developing and planning to implement the R&M requirements to meet the top level project R&M objectives. The emphasis is on providing the evidence to show that the R&M requirements are met, rather than on conducting specific prescribed R&M activities. The technical standard on R&M defines a comprehensive hierarchy of specific R&M objectives and identifies particular strategies to implement them at each level. That is, the top level R&M objective is defined and then one or more design strategies to implement it are developed immediately, before the next lower objectives are defined and the strategies to achieve those are designed. This step-by-step, top-down approach is similar to the axiomatic design method. The objectives are the R&M requirements, and the strategies are the hardware designs or operations plans developed to meet these requirements. The new R&M process is aligned with the systems design process and helps ensure that the methods to meet the R&M requirements are built into the design.
This NASA Technical Standard establishes uniform practices in modeling and simulation to ensure essential requirements are applied to the design, development, and use of models and simulations (MS), while ensuring acceptance criteria are defined by the program project and approved by the responsible Technical Authority. It also provides an approved set of requirements, recommendations, and criteria with which MS may be developed, accepted, and used in support of NASA activities. As the MS disciplines employed and application areas involved are broad, the common aspects of MS across all NASA activities are addressed. The discipline-specific details of a given MS should be obtained from relevant recommended practices. The primary purpose is to reduce the risks associated with MS-influenced decisions by ensuring the complete communication of the credibility of MS results.
As we return to the Moon with Artemis, hardware will inevitably be exposed to lunar dust. Encountering the surface of a dusty planetary body brings significant hazards to the hardware. A team of subject matter experts across NASA were brought together to create a standard for addressing the best means of performing ground testing of hardware and systems to guard against the expected negative effects that dust may bring. This effort resulted in NASA-STD-1008: Classifications and Requirements for Testing Systems and Hardware to be Exposed to Dust in Planetary Environments. The NASA Technical Standard went through an Agency wide review and was approved for public release in September 2021.
New technical standards for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) detect and avoid (DAA) systems mark recent progress toward realizing the goal of full integration of UAS into the National Airspace System (NAS). The DAA system is intended to provide a means of compliance with operating regulations that required pilots on board manned aircraft to remain "well clear" of other aircraft which is accomplished through out-the-window visual acquisition of other aircraft and application of a subjective judgment of safe separation. The requirements for the DAA system, including the specification of a DAA well clear threshold as well as functional requirements for detecting, tracking, alerting and guidance processing, and displays, are specified in DO-365, Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) for DAA Systems developed within RTCA (Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics) Special Committee 228 (SC-228). Intended as the first in a series of phased versions, these requirements are frequently referred to as the "Phase 1" DAA system. The Phase 1 DAA system is limited for use by aircraft transitioning to and from Class A or special use airspace, through Class D, E, and G airspace. In particular, the Phase 1 DAA MOPS are not intended for terminal airspace operations, a critical gap for enabling a full range of UAS operations. The application of the Phase 1 DAA system and DAA well clear threshold within the terminal area is predicted to result in a high number of unnecessary alerts when the UAS is safely separated from other traffic. The goal of the present study was to examine pilot performance and operational issues related to the operation of the Phase 1 DAA system in a terminal area. This experiment was intended as an exploratory study that would be used to inform the development of a new terminal area-specific DAA well clear definition, and associated alerting and guidance requirements. The two main objectives of this study were to: 1) characterize pilot behavior in the terminal environment with the Phase 1 DAA system, and 2) investigate the effect of modifications to the Phase 1 DAA alerting and guidance structure. In particular, the authors were interested in determining whether the removal of specific alerting and guidance levels, without changing the DAA well clear definition or alerting thresholds, would impact pilot performance while conducting terminal operations. The results indicate that the Phase 1 well clear definition and alerting and guidance resulted in frequent alerting that degraded pilots' ability to discriminate between encounters where another aircraft was safely separated versus when a maneuver was necessary. The resulting impact on pilot performance was slower response times and higher frequency and severity of losses of DAA well clear compared to those observed for experiments examining pilot performance in the en route environment. There was no significant effect of alerting and guidance display configuration on pilot performance.