scope:

Purpose

a. This directive establishes requirements, responsibilities, and procedures that will assist NASA Centers and other locations operating NASA aircraft to create local policies and procedures for the management of NASA aircraft resources, flight operations, and related matters.

b. This directive provides a standard approach for the management and use of the NASA Aircraft Operations program. The purpose of the NASA Aircraft Operations program is to directly support the Agency's mission in aeronautical research and development, space science and applications, space flight, astronaut readiness training, and related activities by providing operational flights in both manned aircraft and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

c. This directive should be used in conjunction with other governing instructions, handbooks, and manuals.

Applicability

a. This directive is applicable to NASA Headquarters (HQ) and NASA Centers, including Component Facilities and Technical and Service Support Centers, and contractors operating NASA aircraft/UAS. This language applies to JPL (a Federally-Funded Research and Development Center), other contractors, recipients of grants, cooperative agreements, or other agreements only to the extent specified or referenced in the applicable contracts, grants, or agreements.

Note: This NPR alone is not sufficient to stipulate requirements for the contractor or grant recipient. The contract, grant, or agreement must state the requirements(s) from NPD 7900.4 and this NPR.

b. In this directive, all mandatory actions (i.e., requirements) are denoted by statements containing the term "shall." The terms: "may" or "can" denote discretionary privilege or permission, "should" denotes a good practice and is recommended, but not required, "will" denotes expected outcome, and "are/is" denotes descriptive material. All requirements are numbered consecutively in brackets at the end of the applicable sentence. Requirements are compiled as a Compliance Matrix in Appendix C.

c. In this directive, all document citations are assumed to be the latest version unless otherwise noted.