NASA has created a new tool for generating and archiving NASA advisories — the NASA Advisory Reporting System (NARS). Developed at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), NARS is intended for agency-wide use.

“By basing NARS’s development on the Supplier Assessment System the JSC team was able to save on costs and development time. Even though it’s new, NARS has an established look and feel to it,” said Bill Loewy, NASA’s Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP) Program Manager.

NARS is a web-based system that automates and streamlines the advisory distribution process, instead of relying on paper copies and manually created emails. NASA Advisories notify programs and projects of significant parts issues or concerns that could affect Safety and Mission Assurance.

“NASA Advisories act like a consumer product recall notice,” said NARS Development Lead Will Davis. “The notice is produced by JSC and then distributed to all the other centers so they can assess their projects and programs for impacts. Historically it was done all on paper and then a notification email was sent out, but that allowed opportunities to miss things. This new system is seamless.”

NARS enables Center Alert Coordinators to search existing Advisories; create and distribute new Advisories; upload photos, spreadsheets and test reports; route draft Advisories for review and approval; and publish reports.

“It’s knowledge-capture for the entire process, all going into a single searchable system,” said Davis.

NARS was launched earlier this year at nars.nasa.gov, and is in accordance with NPR 8735.1, Procedures for Exchanging Parts, Materials, Software, and Safety Problem Data Utilizing the Government-Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP) and NASA Advisories. All NASA centers are expected to use the system when developing NASA Advisories.

While NARS was created specifically for coordinators to generate NASA advisories, JSC is working on a second system that will allow anyone within the NASA firewall to search NASA Advisories and other similar documents. This system, the NASA Advisory Notice and Alerts Distribution and Response Tracking System (NANADARTS), will integrate directly with NARS and include other types of advisories such as Missile Defense Agency Alerts.

“It will be a one-stop search with real-time access to data,” said Davis. “The biggest challenge is how to get the information to as many people as possible so they can find it for their needs. The information only helps people if they are informed, and the information could save lives.”

The JSC team is planning to release NANADARTS by the end of this year.