Software Management Office
Mission Statement
The Ames Intelligent Systems Division Software Management Office (SMO) was established in 2007 to help division software engineering projects comply with NASA procedural requirements for software engineering and quality assurance. SMO also helps Division software developers navigate the NASA software release process, through which NASA software is approved for sharing with collaborators, project partners, and other external entities.
NASA Software Engineering Procedural Requirements
NASA’s procedural requirements for software engineering are defined in NASA Procedural Requirement (NPR) 7150.2D. These requirements vary in scope and rigor depending on whether a project is writing flight software to be deployed on a space mission or research software intended to be open sourced and shared with the academic community. Whatever the software classification, SMO assists projects with NPR 7150.2D compliance and documentation, including completing 7150.2D compliance matrices.
Process Asset Library
SMO also maintains a Process Asset Library (PAL) containing samples of common software project documentation for all classes of software, including:
- Software development plans
- Configuration management plans
- Software assurance plans
- Requirements specifications
- Test plans and procedures
- Software cost estimations
- Project plans
In addition, SMO maintains a wiki page with helpful reference materials for Division software projects. This includes links to Division-level resources to help guide and document project compliance with NASA Procedural Requirements (NPRs), Ames Procedural Requirements (APRs), and NASA Technical Standards, as well as Software and Software Safety Classifications and other online artifacts for projects that are increasingly going paperless with their documentation.
Project Management Support
Division flight software teams manage their projects using online task-tracking tools such as JIRA and TRAC. SMO helps projects set up instantiations of these tools and also sponsors training courses as needed. Division personnel can contact SMO or the Division Systems Group for more information on getting started on setting these up.
Continuous Improvement
The Intelligent Systems Division is committed to continually improving our software engineering processes and capabilities. As a demonstration of this commitment, the Division achieved a Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Maturity Level 2 rating in 2010, with subsequent renewals in 2013, 2016, and 2019. SMO is the Division office tasked with maintaining this important rating as a measure of the quality of our flight software development at Ames.
Contact Information
SMO is a resource available to all members of the Intelligent Systems Division, whether working on a large software development team or a one-person research project. For any and all questions and support, please contact Bob Duffy.
Staff
Bob Duffy
Software Management Office Lead
Greg Orzech
Senior Technical & Science Writer
Related Sites
NASA Technology Transfer Program: NASA Software Catalog
NASA Agency Software Process Asset Library