scope:

Purpose

Software engineering is a core capability and key enabling technology for NASA''s missions and supporting infrastructure. This NASA Procedural Requirement (NPR) establishes the engineering requirements for software acquisition, development, maintenance, retirement, operations, and management consistent with the governance model contained in NASA Policy Directive (NPD) 1000.0, NASA Governance and Strategic Management Handbook. This NASA Procedural Requirements (NPR) supports the implementation of NPD 7120.4, NASA Engineering and Program/Project Management Policy.

Applicability

a. This NPR applies to NASA Headquarters (HQ) and NASA Centers, including Component Facilities and Technical and Service Support Centers. This language applies to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) (a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC)), other contractors, grant recipients, or parties to cooperative agreements and other agreements only to the extent specified or referenced in the appropriate contracts, grants, or agreements.

Note: The above statement alone is not sufficient to stipulate requirements for the contractor, grant recipient, or agreement. This NPR provides requirements for NASA contracts, grant recipients, or agreements to the responsible NASA project managers, contracting officers, and the contracting officers representatives that are made mandatory through contract clauses, specifications, or statements of work (SOWs) in conformance with the NASA Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Supplement or by stipulating in the contracts, grants, or agreements which of the NPR requirements apply.

b. This NPR applies to the complete software development life cycle, including software planning, development, testing, maintenance, retirement, operations, management, acquisition, and assurance activities. The requirements of this directive cover such software created, acquired, or maintained by NASA or for NASA to the extent specified or referenced in an appropriate contract, grant, or cooperative agreement. The applicability of these requirements to specific systems and subsystems within the Agency's investment areas, programs, and projects is through the use of the NASA-wide definition of software classes, defined in Appendix D. Some projects may contain multiple software systems and software subsystems having different software classes. For this directive, software is defined in Appendix A, and includes software executing on processors embedded in programmable logic devices.

c. For existing Class A through E programs and projects, the software engineering requirements of this NPR apply to their current and future phases as determined by the responsible Mission Directorate as approved by the NASA Chief Engineer (or as delegated).

d. For existing Class F programs and projects, the software engineering requirements of this NPR apply to their current and future phases as determined by the Center Chief Information Officer (CIO) and approved by the NASA CIO (or delegate).

e. This NPR can be applied to other NASA investments at the discretion of the responsible manager or the NASA Associate Administrator. This NPR is not retroactively applicable to software development, maintenance, operations, management, acquisition, and assurance activities started before the effective date of this NPR (i.e., existing systems and subsystems containing software for the International Space Station, Hubble, Chandra, etc.).

f. This NPR does not supersede more stringent requirements imposed by individual NASA organizations and other Federal Government agencies or by Federal law.

g. In this NPR, all mandatory actions (i.e., requirements) are denoted by statements containing the term "shall," followed by a software engineering (SWE) requirement number. 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.

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