NASA adopted AS9100, Quality Management Systems – Requirements for Aviation, Space, and Defense Organizations into its quality policy in 2005 and has continued its use in the quality policy baseline through its last D revision that occurred in 2016. 

A reliable feedback channel provides crucial information for any high-functioning, continuously improving system. Process data and customer feedback are commonly used to refine manufacturing processes and quality management systems. 

NASA’s Workmanship Standards Program is piloting a new training process with Johnson Space Center’s Receiving and Inspection Test facility that will allow personnel who take the IPC/WHMA-A-620 Space course at NASA training facilities to work as inspectors on NASA flight hardware. This training will provide efficiencies not available when using the training program offered by the IPC, who trains hardware builders and hardware inspectors in the same manner. This training program will be provided only to those who only perform inspections and not to those who will build the hardware.

The agency’s Quality Leadership Forum (QLF) met Sept. 13-15, 2022, at NASA Headquarters to focus on issues of particular interest and significance that are faced by NASA Quality Engineering and Assurance practitioners assigned to aeronautics and space flight program and project teams. The focus was on processes executed internally by NASA. 

The Metrology and Calibration (MetCal) Working Group (MCWG) held its annual Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) April 25-28, 2022, at NASA Wallops Flight Facility. Agency MetCal representatives, calibration laboratory managers, metrologists and other experts from associated fields across all of NASA’s 10 field centers, and two component centers, met in-person and virtually at this hybrid event to discuss technical challenges, best practices and improvements related to the agency’s MetCal program. 

Changes to AS9101, Requirements for Conducting Audits of Aviation, Space, and Defense Quality Management Systems and to AS9104-1, Requirements for the Certification of Aviation, Space and Defense Quality Management System Certification Programs are introducing two new processes to the certification cycle for AS9100, Quality Systems – Aerospace – Model for Quality Assurance in Design, Development, Production, Installation and Servicing:  the Organization Certification Analysis Process and the Performance Based Surveillance/Recertification Process. The AS9104 series of standards describe the nature and governance of the Industry Controlled Other Party scheme used to execute and manage accreditation of certification bodies (i.e., registrars), auditors, training programs and certification of organizations to AS9100. 

The Office of Safety and Mission Assurance’s Workmanship Standards program recently updated NASA-STD-8739.6, Implementation Requirements for NASA Workmanship Standards to

• Align with changes in industry standards
• Expand Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) control requirements
• Clarify training requirements
• Reflect changes in other NASA Policy Directives and NASA Procedural Requirements

Recent updates to NPR 8735.2, Hardware Quality Assurance Program Requirements for Programs and Projects consolidate Office of Safety and Mission Assurance policy into a hierarchy, make life cycle Quality Assurance more obvious without increasing prescription, and present approaches and solutions for a set of mission assurance objectives. 

NASA uses the Programmable Josephson Voltage Standard (PJVS) to ensure the agency’s calibrations include the most accurate voltage measurement with the lowest measurement uncertainty possible. 

Langley Research Center is actively using state-of-the-art Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) modeling and simulation tools to accelerate the adoption of advanced materials and ensure the safety of aging infrastructure.