scope:

The growth in cost and importance of software has made it necessary for NASA to establish software standards and guidance for use in the development and acquisition of software. The Software Management and Assurance Program (SMAP), established in the Office of Safety and Mission Quality of NASA Headquarters, focuses the NASA activities in defining standards for software management, engineering, and assurance. One of the products of the SMAP is a series of guidebooks that defines a NASA concept of the processes that are used to manage, engineer, and assure software.

There are three levels of SMAP software guidebooks. Level 1 is reserved for a high level guidebook that will describe the NASA view of software and the SMAP. There will be three Level 2 guidebooks that will provide an overall picture of the concepts and practices of NASA in software management, assurance, and engineering. Level 3 guidebooks will focus on specific activities that fall within each of those three software disciplines, and provide more detailed information for the manager and/or practitioner.

This is the Level 3 Software Quality Assurance Audits Guidebook that describes software quality assurance audits in a way that is compatible with practices at NASA Centers. For a more generalized view of how software quality assurance audits relate to Software Assurance, refer to the Level 2 Software Assurance Guidebook, document number SMAP-GB-A201.