NASA-STD-8739.1B, Workmanship Standard for Polymeric Application on Electronic Assemblies was updated and released on June 30, 2016. The revised standard, effective for five years, includes significant technical updates and corrections. This update was one of three recently publish standard updates, which included NASA-STD-8739.4A, Crimping, Interconnecting Cables, Harnesses, and Wiring and NASA-STD-8739.6A, Implementation Requirements for NASA Workmanship Standards.

NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance’s Nondestructive Evaluation program is leading a variety of agency initiatives to ensure the successful qualification of Additive Manufacturing products for deployment on future NASA missions.

Over the last seven years, Goddard Space Flight Center has experienced a massive increase in the use of inherited components, including flight-printed wiring assemblies.

An inherited component is one that either already exists or is built-to-print from an existing design. If these parts aren’t designed, manufactured, inspected, tested and delivered acceptably, they pose an elevated risk to missions.

The July 2016 edition of Orbital Debris Quarterly News included an article on Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris impacts on an International Space Station cover. Continue reading for the full article. 

Recently, a new course, “Expendable Launch Vehicle Payload Safety Requirements” (SMA-HQ-WBT-206), was released to the agency in SATERN. The course focuses on NASA-STD-8719.24, NASA Expendable Launch Vehicle Payload Safety Requirements.

NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office is acquiring a Titan Transtage from the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group , commonly known as “The Boneyard,” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, to conduct spectrographic inspections to better understand these historic spacecraft.

The 2016 Quality Leadership Forum, sponsored by NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance, took place in March in Cape Canaveral, Florida. One hundred and forty five attendees from NASA and other government agencies, as well as suppliers and distributors, discussed a wide range of topics that provided insight into Quality lessons learned, risks, best practices and updates to industry standards.

The issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News covering January through April 2016 is now available. 

Attendees of the Range Commanders Council’s 117th Range Safety Group Technical Interchange Meeting last November discussed the growing relevancy of autonomous flight systems in the Range Flight Safety community, as well as related policy changes needed to accommodate the new interest. In addition, they discussed resource protection, a launch vehicle failure, and upcoming policy and risk criteria changes related to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The meeting was hosted by the Missile Defense Agency at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, and attended by representatives from government agencies and industries with ties to and interest in the U.S. National Test Ranges.

On Feb. 11, Deputy Chief Safety and Mission Assurance Officer Emeritus for the Commercial Crew Program Paul Kirkpatrick received a NASA Yes-If challenge coin for exemplary leadership over his 44-year career as a safety professional.