NASA PREFERRED RELIABILITY PRACTICES

OVERVIEW

PURPOSE

This manual is produced to communicate within the aerospace community design practices that have contributed to NASA mission success. The information presented has been collected from various NASA field centers and reviewed by a committee consisting of senior technical representatives from the participating centers.

APPLICABILITY

The information presented in this manual represents the "best technical advice" that NASA has to offer on reliability design and test practices. The practices contained in this manual should not be interpreted as requirements, but rather as proven technical approaches that can enhance system reliability. Application of the practices and guidelines is strongly encouraged, but the final decisions regarding applicability resides with the particular program or project office.

The manual is divided into two technical sections, Practices and Guidelines. Reliability Practices, includes design criteria, test procedures, and analytical techniques that have been successfully applied on previous space flight programs. Reliability Guidelines, includes techniques currently applied to space flight projects where insufficient information exists to certify that the technique will contribute to mission success.

DISCUSSION

Experience with NASA's successful extended duration space missions shows that four fundamental elements contribute to high reliability:

  1. Understanding stress factors imposed on flight hardware by its operating environment;
  2. Controlling the stress factors through selection of conservative design criteria;
  3. Appropriate analysis to identify and track high stress points in the design (prior to qualification testing or flight use); and
  4. Careful selection of redundancy alternatives that will provide the necessary function(s) should failure occur.

This manual is provided to encourage design, test, and reliability engineers to give careful attention to both redundancy and stress management during the design and development of space flight systems.

CONTROL/CONTRIBUTION

The practices and guidelines contained in this manual serve as a mechanism for communicating the latest techniques that contribute to high reliability. This document will be revised periodically to include additional practices/guidelines, or revisions to information (as additional technical data become available). Contributions from aerospace contractors and NASA field Centers is encouraged. Any practice, guideline or technique that appears appropriate for inclusion in this document should be submitted for review. Submissions should be formatted identically to the practices and guidelines in this document and sent to the address below for consideration:

        National Aeronautics and Space Administration
        Code QS
        300 E Street, SW
        Washington, DC 20546

Organizations submitting practices/guidelines that are selected for inclusion will be recognized in the lower right-hand corner of the published item.

 

Go Directly to :

NASA R&M Steering Committee Home Page

Design and Test Practices for Aerospace Systems

Design and Test Guidelines for Aerospace Systems

Design and Test Practices for Ground Support Equipment

NASA Reliability and Maintainability Steering Committee Vision, Mission, and Strategic Thrusts

Glossary of Terms for the Reliability Preferred Practices

Keyword Index to the Reliability Preferred Practices

All introductory material including the cover page and frontispieces to each of the sections in the originally published document.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Please submit your comments and recommendations to the curator of this page.

Web Curator: Henry Hartt (hhartt@vitro.hq.nasa.gov)
Responsible NASA official: Ron Lisk ( ron.lisk@hq.nasa.gov)

Last revision - February 29, 1996