(SATC) SOFTWARE ASSURANCE TECHNOLOGY CENTER

TOOLS & TECHNIQUES

The SATC is working on various assurance tools and techniques including:

Automated Requirement Measurement (ARM) tool

Reusable Software Management Plan

Requirements Use case Tool

All publicly-released SATC-developed tools may be downloaded by visiting:

http://satc.gsfc.nasa.gov/tools/download

The Automated Requirement Measurement (ARM) Tool

The Automated Requirement Measurement (ARM) Tool was developed by the Software Assurance Technology Center (SATC) at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as an early life cycle tool for assessing requirements that are specified in natural language. The objective of the ARM tool is to provide measures that can be used by project managers to assess the quality of a requirements specification document. The ARM tool scans a requirements specification document for key words and phrases and generates a report file summarizing the specific quality indicators. The tool is not intended to evaluate the correctness of the specified requirements. It is an aid to "writing the requirements right," not "writing the right requirements."

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Reusable Software Management Plan

NASA software policies, as detailed in NPD-2820 (replaced NMI 2410.10B as of 5/98), require the development of software management plans.   The SATC has developed a Reusable Software Management Plan, based on the DID in the NASA software documentation standard to ease the burden of writing SMPs. The Reusable Software Development Plan consists of text for a software management plan written in accordance with the Management Plan DID of the NASA Software Documentation Standard. It includes an on-line help tool for tailoring text to an individual software project.

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Requirements Use case Tool (0.1) (RUT)

RUT provides assistance to managers, customers, and developers in assessing the quality of use cases and serves as a database repository for requirements developed as use cases.

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Software is a critical element in a safety critical system, it is imperative to implement a systematic approach to software safety as an integral part of the overall system safety programs. The NASA-STD-8719.13A "NASA Software Safety Standard", describes the activities necessary to ensure that safety is designed into software that is acquired or developed by NASA, and that safety is maintained throughout the software life cycle. A PDF version, can be obtained by clicking here.  Glenn Research Center has developed a NASA Guidebook for Safety Critical Software which will assist in the implementation of the requirements in the Safety Standard.

• SMA (300)
  • Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) Is committed to ensuring the highest probability of mission success. SMA is responsible for the overall management and implementation of GSFC policy in the areas of systems safety and mission assurance.
• SRO (301)
  • Conducts a series of formal, fully independent reviews on each GSFC mission to evaluate and provide recommendations concerning the design, development, and testing of the flight and group segments.
• ISO (302)
  • Provides solutions to continuously improve overall project and Center mission performance through policy, assessments/Audits, data analysis, SMA requirements traceability and compliance verification, and risk management implementation
• RAO (305)
  • RAO serves as a resource to Center Management for independent assessments of cost and schedule risk, so that informed decisions can be made to promote mission success thereby enhancing the Center’s ability to deliver on its commitments.
• MSD (320)
  • The Mission Support Division works closely with all GSFC flight projects to enable early integration and life cycle implementation of system safety, reliability, quality, and mission assurance.