As the new calendar year approaches, the Human Factors Task Force (HFTF) started reflecting on its many achievements over the past 12 months. The team gained new members, offered and developed more training, and integrated Human Factors into the agency mishap reporting system.

The Office of Safety and Mission Assurance’s Multi-Layered Pressure Vessel Risk Mitigation Project (MLPVRMP) made significant advancements in detecting weld flaws in Multi-Layered Pressure Vessels (MLVP) through the use of advanced techniques in Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE). The unique design and fabrication of MLPVs made inspection of inner weld areas joining shell to shell layers impossible, until now. This breakthrough presents the agency with the ability to thoroughly examine and baseline in-service MLPVs for critical weld flaws, thereby supporting selective MLPV replacement based on verified risk. 

In tune with the agency’s initiative to create solutions that enable seamless data flow and collaboration across centers, NASA is hosting its first virtual Digital Transformation Hackathon, Sept. 11.

“NASA Secure Software Engineering Portal,” a Software Assurance Research Program (SARP) project, intends to develop an online portal to provide user-friendly access to security-related software development knowledge.

“Automating Software Complexity Monitoring and Security Analysis,” a Software Assurance Research Program (SARP) project, intends to identify a set of complexity-related metrics and automatically generate them for use by Software Assurance personnel and developers throughout the entire software development process.

One Software Assurance Research Program (SARP) project, “Toward a Guide for Software Defect Tracking, Modeling, and Analysis,” intends to connect software Reliability growth models to practical software defect tracking. 

One Software Assurance Research Program (SARP) project, “Software Assurance Tasking Checklists for NASA-STD-8739.8,” intends to automate the identification of Software Assurance activities.

NASA-HDBK-2203B, NASA Software Engineering and Software Assurance Handbook was approved by the NASA chief engineer on April 20, 2020. This wiki-based NASA Technical Handbook provides users and practitioners with guidance material for implementing the requirements of NPR 7150.2, NASA Software Engineering Requirements and the implementation of the draft NASA Software Assurance and Software Safety requirements in NASA-STD-8739.8A, Software Assurance and Software Safety Standard.

The April 2020 issue of Orbital Debris Quarterly News is now available. This issue includes the articles, "Three Recent Breakup Events," "The New NASA Orbital Debris Engineering Model 3.1," and "Composite Material Char Rate and Strength Retention Study at University of Texas at Austin," among other pieces.

The NASA Software Assurance Research Program is sponsoring five research projects aimed to benefit Software Assurance processes across the agency. The research program is aligned to support goals to improve how NASA performs Software Assurance activities.