The NASA Workmanship Standards Program has released a new course in SATERN as a part of the NSC STEP Training that provides an overview of NASA-STD 8739.6, Implementation Requirements for NASA Workmanship Standards. The course, “8739.6 Self-Paced Workmanship Training,” is intended to inform and familiarize NASA employees with the NASA standard without replacing the need to read the content of the standard or participate in traditional Workmanship training.

Historically, NASA maintained its own technical standards, however, a regulation was released that requires government agencies to consider using industry standards in lieu of government-developed standards where practical.  As a result, over the last sixteen years NASA Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) has moved forward with the adoption of several industry voluntary consensus standards as replacements for many of the NASA Workmanship technical standards.

Because of this shift from internal to industry standards, NASA-STD 8739.6 was created to provide global requirements applicable across all Workmanship sub-disciplines and to modify the requirements of NASA-adopted industry voluntary consensus standards where necessary to close requirements gaps. The new NASA-STD 8739.6 training course in SATERN points to all NASA and adopted industry standards for Workmanship, pulls the important information from each one, and explains many of the general requirements in more detail.

“The goal of this new course is to familiarize people with the contents of NASA-STD 8739.6,” said Alvin Boutte, OSMA Workmanship Standards Program manager. “When we train employees, we typically take time to go over this document. One motivation for this course is that it could be a pre-requisite for NASA Workmanship training, so when employees come to class, they are already familiar with the requirements.”

This standard outlines the general training program requirements, which covers everything from student training prerequisites to which centers are considered Safety and Mission Assurance-sponsored training centers. It also explains the Institute for Printed Circuits (IPC) training programs and what NASA accepts from external trainers.

NASA-STD 8739.6 and “8739.6 Self-Paced Workmanship Training” covers requirements from all of the NASA standards and NASA-adopted industry voluntary consensus standards, which includes

• NASA-STD-8739.1, Workmanship Standard for Polymeric Application on Electronic Assemblies
• NASA-STD-8739.4, Workmanship Standard for Crimping, Interconnecting Cables, Harnesses, and Wiring
• NASA-STD-8739.5, Workmanship Standard for Fiber Optic Terminations, Cable Assemblies, and Installation
• IPC J-STD-001 plus the Space Addendum
• IPC IPC/WHMA-A-620 plus the Space Addendum
• ANSI/ESD S20.20.

The new course can be found in SATERN under “8739.6 Self-Paced Workmanship Training” or SMA-HQ-WBT-216.