Application and management of commonality within NASA systems

Commonality can be defined as the sharing of assets such as components, designs, processes, technologies, interfaces, and/or infrastructure across systems. Through commonality, NASA has the opportunity to develop, produce, and operate systems more efficiently, thus reducing their life cycle costs. However, the benefits gained from commonality greatly depend on how commonality is managed, i.e. how successfully the identification of opportunities is managed and how those opportunities are subsequently evaluated and implemented. The goal of this research is to observe how commonality is managed within NASA systems and to identify the best practices and key challenges for the management of commonality. To that end, three case studies were conducted of past and present NASA systems: the Constellation Space Suit System (CSSS), the International Standard Payload Rack (ISPR), and the Core Flight-Software System (CFS). Each of the case studies was chosen because it offered a diverse view into the management of commonality, by differing in the program in which the system was developed, the type of system that was developed, and the method used to develop the system. The case studies offer a detailed look into current management practices within NASA and allow for comparisons to be made with seven industry case studies, previously conducted by Boas (2008).

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Rhodes, Richard Alexander

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Edward F. Crawley.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/58081

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/58081