Implementation of International Standards during a planetary architecture design development study

The International Standards Working Group was chartered amongst NASA and a variety of global space interest organizations to investigate the existence, need, and proper introduction of technology standards as an architecture was being developed for a series of lunar missions. The ISWG attacked the request by identifying the various interfaces associated with the proposed architectural assets (92 in total). The ISWG used a tracking system to classify interfaces into three categories: identified and suggested existing standards helped describe and govern the interface, existing standards related to but did not completely associate with the interface, and those interfaces that need the creation of standards to properly lead the interface development. Of those interfaces identified in the study, 22 percent needed standards development to define the interface; 36 percent had existing standards that were similar to the interface architecture, and 42 percent had specific existing standards that could be used to define the architecture. The result of this exercise helped the cohesion of this international group by identifying applicable standards from various sources verses just utilizing the ones most common to NASA. Our conclusion was that there can be a very professional cooperative effort to select the best standards set and that this work can occur at proper stages in the architectural development process.