scope:

Purpose

The purpose of this Standard is to establish requirements and guidance for design and fabrication of ground support equipment (GSE) to assist National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space flight programs/projects in providing robust, safe, reliable, maintainable, supportable, and cost-effective GSE.

Applicability

a. This Standard is applicable to NASA space flight programs and its use is at the discretion of each program. This Standard establishes a set of GSE design requirements for NASA programs and projects. This Standard is intended for use in establishing uniform engineering practices and methods and ensuring that essential requirements are included in the design, procurement, and fabrication of GSE used to support the operations of receiving, storage, transportation, handling, assembly, inspection, test, checkout, service, launch, and recovery of space vehicles and payloads at NASA's launch, landing, or retrieval locations. GSE must also meet the requirements for the location of its intended use (e.g. AFSPCMAN 91-710, Range Safety User Requirements Manual, for the Eastern and Western Test Ranges).

b. This Standard is approved for use by NASA Headquarters and NASA Centers, including Component Facilities and Technical and Service Support Centers, and may be cited in contract, program, and other Agency documents as a technical requirement. This Standard may also apply to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or to other contractors, grant recipients, or parties to agreements only to the extent specified or referenced in their contracts, grants, or agreements.

c. Requirements are numbered and indicated by the word "shall." Explanatory or guidance text is indicated in italics beginning in section 4.

d. Programs, projects, and elements are responsible for flowing requirements down to contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers of components at the lowest level.

e. Programs, in conjunction with Engineering and Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) organizations, have the responsibility to do the following:

(1) Determine categories or types of GSE based on risk and any additional requirements resulting from these categories or types.

(2) Establish and define where this Standard will be applied and when such boundaries require clarification.

(3) Establish program- and project-specific requirements.

(4) Establish minimum configuration management systems to retain the required documentation.

f. This Standard does not apply to the following unless specified by a program, project or Center:

(1) Equipment that is used solely during the manufacturing of flight hardware.

(2) Ground support systems (GSS) that interface with GSE.

(3) Facilities.

(4) Tools.