Reducing NPR 7120.5D to Practice: Preparing for a remote site Life-cycle Review

The Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission was the first Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) project initiated under NASA\´s revised rules for space flight project management, NPR 7120.5D, "NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Requirements." NASA selected GRAIL through a competitive Announcement of Opportunity (AO) process and funded its Phase B Preliminary Design effort. The first major milestone was institutional, the JPL Project Mission System Review (PMSR), which proved an excellent tune-up for the end-of-Phase B NASA life-cycle review, the Preliminary Design Review (PDR). Building on JPL experience with the Prometheus and Juno projects, the team successfully organized for and conducted these reviews on an aggressive schedule. The results were summarized in last year\´s IEEE paper, "Reducing NPR 7120.5D to Practice: Preparing for a Life-cycle Review." GRAIL successfully passed its KDP-C Confirmation Review and initiated Phase C in March 2009. For the Project Critical Design Review (CDR), lessons learned from the PDR and updated Standing Review Board (SRB) practices from the Agency were factored into the review preparation effort. Additionally, the review would be held at the Principal Investigator\´s institution, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), rather than at the project management center (JPL), necessitating additional cross-country coordination. A review preparation team was established, including a Review Captain and leads for documentation, information systems, logistics, and site coordination, and their roles, responsibilities and task assignments were identified. Aids were produced, including a detailed review preparation schedule and a comprehensive gate products production table. Institutional support was leveraged early and often. Implementation strategy reflected the needs of a nationally distributed team, as well as applicable export control and IT security requirements. Key actions were taken to interact pro- - actively with the SRB, mature project requirements, conduct a battery of pre-CDR reviews, produce high-quality gate products, generate review presentation materials, and handle a myriad of supporting logistical functions. This paper provides a detailed description of project CDR preparation and execution activities, including positive and negative lessons learned, and identifies recommendations for future NASA (and non-NASA) project teams.