APL Flight Software Workshop 2015 NASA Software Capability

APL Flight Software Workshop 2015

NASA Software Capability Assessment

Software Barriers Analysis by Centers • Level of detailed contained in the system requirements and fault management requirements, • Existing software release process and requirements • IT infrastructure makes inter-Center collaboration difficult; • Software security requirements and understanding at the mission/project software level, • Hiring issues software engineering 10/25/2020 NASA Internal Use Only 3

Software Library 63 Aeroscience 64 Avionics 65 Flight Mechanics 66 Loads and Dynamics 67 Passive Thermal 68 Propulsion 69 Rendezvous & Capture NASA should pursue the development of partnerships and coalitions to access computational resources representative of envisioned future hardware and develop advanced computational methods on these systems Software Library Procure NASA-wide site licenses for commonly used avionics development tools (Math. CAD, PADs. PCB, Altium, Or. CAD, Pspice, etc. ) Software Library Pursue Agency Cloud licensing for Matlab/Simulink, STK, and Free. Flyer Software Library Enable transfer of work breakdown structure (WBS) codes between Centers to facilitate virtual consolidation of key capabilities into Agency wide sub-discipline focus groups, to more efficiently access discipline experts across the Agency, to allow sharing of workforce resources among centers, to facilitate knowledge sharing within the Agency, and to create more opportunities for junior engineers to gain exposure to other Centers and organizations across NASA. Software Library Reduce costs of analysis tools used within the Passive Thermal community, Center engineering organizations should consider: a) combine software tool licenses into combination packages, -b) reduce quantity of SINAPS and Flo. CAD licenses, c) reduce quantity of licenses for "legacy" and rarely used tools, d) define "best practices" toolsets for thermal analysis, ablation, STOP analysis, etc. , e) recommend OCE pursue cloud-based Agency sharing capability (i. e. floating licenses) of common tools. Implement Auto. CAD/Thermal Desktop as a pathfinder. Reduce systems administration to one primary and one back-up Center. Software Library Look for additional opportunities for cross agency analytical tool/CAD type license/seat purchase/sharing. Purchase of COTS tools across Agency Endorse creation of a RV&C ‘Warehouse’ that would facilitate reusable software components for RV&C systems to be managed by the RV&C SCLT 70 Software Promote the sharing of reusable software within and for NASA Missions using the catalog efforts currently underway. Support software catalogs that identify software that could be reused for future missions. The catalog should identify available software, software under development, and future software needs. The catalog should specify reuse attributes necessary for project cost and effort estimations. a) develop and record metrics that identify the return on investment of the catalog effort, b) work with OCT to include in the software catalog or electronic listing all of the missions software available for reuse within NASA, c) update the release of NASA Software, NPR 2210. 1 C, to allow CS to CS transfer of software within the Agency, across Center boundaries, during the current update cycle (Aug 2015), d) work toward an electronic based Agency wide Software Release Process, e) Implement a schedule or prioritization processes for software releases to support active Agency engineering schedules, f) OCT and OCE shall authorize an agency-wide software repository infrastructure specifically for shared resources, and g) support for Agency -wide access to agency resources. Resources to include shared software and development efforts, tools and licenses, as well as personnel and expertise. 71 Software Continued support for the NASA Software Improvement Initiative effort, with focus on development and recording metric data to determine software improvement and cost reduction efforts return on investment Software Library

Workforce Deployment 119 Active Thermal 120 Avionics 121 Avionics 122 123 124 125 126 Electrical Power Electrical Power 127 Electrical Power 128 Flight Mechanics 129 Guidance, Navigation & Control 130 Human Factors 131 In Situ Resource Utilization 132 133 In Situ Resource Utilization 134 Life Support 135 136 Life Support Materials 137 Mechanical Systems 138 Mechanical Systems 139 140 Mechanical Systems Non Destructive Evaluation 141 Passive Thermal 142 143 144 Propulsion Rendezvous & Capture 145 Software 146 147 148 Prioritize in-house work/projects to build and maintain skills Each Center should identify their minimum core capabilities to accomplish their missions and maintain those core capacities at their center. They should also review the capabilities of the contractors and if the capabilities are core capabilities, the capabilities should be transferred where possible to civil servants. Acquire additional workforce resources needed to support near term human spaceflight milestones (CCP and Orion/SLS), either by establishing agreements with other centers or by prioritizing avionics hiring at relevant human spaceflight centers. Consolidate power activities to a smaller more relevant set; R&D criteria and prioritization Be more efficient on what we undertake; cross Agency training Shape the workforce to key priorities rather than feed specialty areas that lack current driving need WYE Use Criteria to better define when WYE is preferred Internal development increase (without use of WYE for base engineering skills) making for more effective smart buyers Maintain/increase internal flight project and instrument developments even at centers that traditionally have few such opportunities (may require more virtual teaming to match opportunity with workforce) Establish a new model for managing FM workforce Foster and encourage collaboration: a) Create labor charging mechanism that can be used across centers, b) provide a simple mechanism to facilitate internal sharing of software , c) pursue options for increased collaboration Near term strategic hiring Establish a multicenter team (with adequate funding support) to determine the benefits and risks associated with incorporating ISRU for medium-long duration human missions to moon, asteroid and Mars to support Agency decisions. Continue to improve coordination between HEOMD and STMD on directed vs competed work required to increase productivity and reduce costs Improve coordination between SMD and HEOMD on ISRU and Planetary Science Programs and projects to increase productivity and reduce costs For Medical/Life Sciences flight hardware projects, there should be coordination with Engineering to improve down selection of design options, system & vehicle integration, and hardware performance verification Reduce dependency on contractor workforce Adopt a strategy that will sustain a healthy Engineering Materials discipline workforce capability. A) Develop a process at the Agency level to allow rapid establishment and exchange of WBS across centers. B) Facilitate communication within product and sub-capability areas to promote information exchange and future collaboration through activities such as establishing communities of practice, technical interchange meetings, and regular voluntary intercenter rotations of 6 -12 months within the sub-capabilities or product areas. Address the shortfall in resources and reverse the decay of the discipline capability in the following steps: 1) Prioritize key civil servant roles so that limited civil servant resources may be applied to the areas of highest need, 2) evaluate new operating models that may be required in any resulting de-emphasized areas, 3) broaden our skill development approach and restore financial support for training and prioritization of training and development opportunities to make existing engineers more capable, 4) retool hiring practices for existing billets to better balance hiring of interns with experienced engineers, and 5) fill any remaining resource gaps with additional hires. Workforce Deployment Workforce Deployment Workforce Deployment Workforce Deployment Workforce Deployment Workforce Deployment Structures Examine the high ratio of JPL technical managers to engineers to determine if there is a savings opportunity. Develop more efficient contracting processes for obtaining needed NDE support Identify contractors with critical technical skills and convert them into civil servants. This should be performed on a recurring basis. Identify CS with non-critical technical skills and facilitate relative easy reallocation to other disciplines or otherwise allow the existing under-utilized Passive Thermal FTE positions to be opened to hiring contractors that possess the correct and critical technical capabilities identified by the CLT. Create a mechanism where capability leadership participates in selection and distribution of internal Agency work Remove barriers to progress toward Integrated Engineering Team Vision (e. g. competition model, charge code mobility, MD charge code inflexibility) Cross Mission Directorate and cross program integration approach to RV&C needs to be put in place Improved work force utilization, build the Software Development Capabilities to maintain the option for in house "make" decisions: a) enhance decision to incorporate make-buy-reuse, b) develop guidance for NASA acquisitions that include mission critical software components, c) develop and record make-buy-reuse metrics, and d) remove barriers to sharing software development resources such as quotas, limited IT access, and EBS charge account issues Become a partner in National/Interagency efforts rather than just within NASA (e. g. DOD/NASA/FAA National Plan for Composite Structures R&D) Structures Develop collaborative relationships with contractors during the design, development and test phases of hardware development so that NASA has greater involvement (e. g. in-line engineering) Workforce Deployment Structures NASA should increase interaction with the FAA and DOD to obtain the benefit of their expertise and experience in composite structures Workforce Deployment Workforce Deployment

Workforce Shaping 149 Active Thermal Enhance young engineers professional development (e. g. experience in flight problem resolution, sustaining engineering, smart buyer analysis) Workforce Shaping 150 Active Thermal Workforce Shaping 151 Avionics 152 Flight Mechanics 153 Guidance, Navigation & Control 154 In Situ Resource Utilization Thermal Desktop analysis tool training should be required for all thermal engineers When hiring, establish goals to create a balanced-age/experience workforce distribution: a) hiring should concentrate on center-specific targeted areas identified that are below the 40 -yr career path, b) provide the mentoring and training critical to maintaining a healthy workforce, c) provide incentives that compete with industry in order to attract in and maintain the younger engineering workforce, d) continue offering buy-out and part time retirement to enable new hiring Convert a minimum of 5. 1% of total FM workforce from WYE to FTE Strengthen GN&C workforce: a) hire the critical WYE support contractors as civil servants), b) increase use of IPAs as an interim gap filler, c) take advance of OPM Phase Retirement Initiative, d) invest more in NASA Space Technology Research Fellows, and e) expand existing HOPE (Hands On Project Experience) Closer coordination between ISRU and other technical disciplines is required to maximize the benefits from the start, reduce duplication of efforts, and to better align needs and gap closure activities Extend NASA Technical Fellow Program by adding tiers to provide true alternate career ladder that recognizes engineering excellence Workforce Shaping Invest in personnel replacement and training to maintain technical competency (organizational investment area) Workforce Shaping Foster the development of engineering communities across the Agency: a) form "working groups" which will 1. allow us to find commonalities across projects to make work more efficient, and 2. allow effective sharing of people, equipment and facility. Candidates disciplines include ablation software development, STOP analysis, testing. b) make working across the Agency part of a supervisor's performance plan, c) incentivize rotations and/or "fellowships" to other Centers to promote a more integrated, trusting work culture across the Agency, d) ensure simplicity in rapidly moving funds from center to center, e) consider pre-positioning funding at centers to encourage collaboration between centers, f) standardize the practice of institutionalizing knowledge capture, and g) improve agility of workforce by providing cross-training opportunities. Workforce Shaping Set aside resources for additional rotations and details of personnel between centers - increases collaboration and potentially inhibit growth of duplicate capabilities Workforce Shaping Improve the software hiring rates, develop a new hire/intern process that captivates new talent for software. Workforce Shaping 155 Loads and Dynamics 156 Non Destructive Evaluation 157 Passive Thermal 158 Propulsion 159 Software 160 Structures 161 Structures 162 Structures Foster increased formal and informal technology/mission need information and personnel exchanges within NASA, and between NASA and outside organizations Focus on retention of competencies and expertise. [Centers] 1) Early career engineers (ECEs) need to be developed: 1 a. Constraints that inhibit the hiring of ECEs and their training and development should be removed or relaxed, 1 b. assign ECEs to projects but cover with overhead funding initially because projects want the senior engineers in the limited FTE they provide, 1 c. involve ECEs with mentoring by "gray beards" in project/program teams, 1 d. development of a "NASA Structures University" curriculum composed of theoretical and empirical methods, applied engineering, and test facility exposure, and 1 e. mandatory mentoring by senior engineers - include mentoring elements into performance plans. [EMB] 2) Encourage the development of meaningful exchange programs among research, mission centers, and industry. [All] 3) Encourage ECEs to include manufacturing, assembly, analysis and test in their work portfolio so that they can see and learn exactly how the decisions they make translate to hardware. Strengthen tool usage, proficiency, and development. [Centers] 1 a) establish, maintain, encourage broad COTS analysis tool expertise, 1 b) encourage understanding of theory behind the tools. [EMB] 2 a) Involve the Technical Authority with COTS tool developers to keep abreast of tool verification and enhancements, 2 b) Advocate for tool development technology resources. [NESC] 3) continue providing resources and advocacy for tool technology development Workforce Shaping Workforce Shaping

Software Release

Mitigation of Real Risks First, the release process is necessary and mandated for external release of software throughout the development community. The risks being mitigated are real risks. Litigation risks: • Risk of litigation concerning ownership issues of software package. • Risk of litigation concerning scope of software package release. Security risks: • Risk of foreign “military” use of software. Quality risks: • Risk of software quality causing mission failure. • Risk of misuse of software causing mission failure. Technical Transfer risks: • Risk of not meeting charter/quota for public release of software Engineering risks: • Risk of release delays impacting software engineering. • Risk of release denial impacting software engineering.

Contracts and Agreements The mitigation of these risks spans the team developing the software, the software quality and safety community, and the legal offices. Nominally, this sharing process is part of the project, program, and delivery agreements, statement of work, and contracts. However, software existing or being developed external to or after completion of any project, program, or contract must mitigate these same risks to support any external release. Development teams must preparing for these release issues as part of the development plan.

Engineering Concerns Engineering risks: • Risk of release delays impacting software engineering. • Risk of release denial impacting software engineering. • Plan for the release, not just the documentation, training material, test regime, test results, but include all documentation needed for the security and legal risks. • Involve release authorities early in the plan. Get a specific POC for release issues.

Technical Transfer Concerns Technical Transfer risks: • Risk of not meeting charter/quota for public release of software • Release through technical transfer channels may delay internal or engineering release. Technical transfer may elevate release scope to promote release to the public over release to engineering efforts. • Technical transfer can be disconnected from inline engineering efforts. Budgeted separate from engineering. No engineering schedule pressures. • Technical transfer can be more about quantity versus quality or usefulness.

Quality Concerns Quality risks: • Risk of software quality causing mission failure. • Risk of misuse of software causing mission failure. • Fully identify the Technical Readiness Level (TRL) of the software package. This could be several levels (i. e. Flown and unmodified software (TRL 9) with an additional “unflown” feature (TRL 5)) • Fully identify the testing performed, and not performed. Include test results, and if possible, a regression test suite • Categorize the use of the software, what level of decisions (model or analysis) or control (flight or ground) the software can currently support • Include a detailed Version Description Document (VDD) detailing tools and development environment including all version details • Try to answer the question: “If I were to use this software, what confidence would I have? ”

Security Concerns State risks: • Risk of foreign “military” use of software. • Trajectory, targeting, encryption, database, expert system, … • Identify early in planning who would make this determination. Not your decision, but the development team could support the evaluation • Could the software package be partitioned or controlled to eliminate the concern (stub it out), limit the package distribution, control the package distribution?

Legal Concerns Litigation risks: • Risk of litigation concerning ownership issues of software package. • Risk of litigation concerning scope of software package release. • Legal issues can delay the software release months or years, including denial. • No schedule or budget pressure can be applied. • Initial development delivery agreements should clearly identify delivery and ownership • Check that any usage agreements for supplied software included, copied, or linked into the software package do not conflict with ownership and release of final package

c. FE/CFS Issues 1 of 2 HAL, BSP, HWIF Apps, Apps • Proprietary and confidential issues have been experienced in software developed specific to hardware interfaces • Check that any usage agreements for supplied software included, copied, or linked into the software package do not conflict with ownership and release of final package • Document all usage agreement for all software included, copied, or linked within package

c. FE/CFS Issues 2 of 2 HAL, BSP, HWIF Apps, Apps • Partition application functionality to include release requirements, not just engineering requirements • Release of applications as packages reduces release processing effort • No process currently exists to accept software from an external development effort into NASA. It is a question of releasing ownership and reassigning ownership between entities • Revisions and versions can initiate an new release effort. Check with release authority. Currently, an increment of any major version number requires a new release process at NASA