FAIRMONT – NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program in Fairmont has released a new, innovative Annual Report documenting successes in safety, COVID-19 response, cybersecurity, and mission assurance in Fiscal Year 2020.
The FY2020 Annual Report documented the intensive work done in unprecedented conditions of mass telework and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We supported more missions than ever, an increased speed of development and software complexity required us to respond with innovation to assure effectiveness and efficiency, and the ever-evolving threatening landscape required us to increase our focus on software assurance and security,” IV&V Program Director Gregory Blaney said.
IV&V plays a vital role in missions that collect information to improve life on earth, study the history of the solar system, and support sustainable space exploration. Missions detailed in the report include the Mars2020 Perseverance Rover, which launched over the summer and is slated to land on Mars in February.
“The software on the spacecraft was responsible for ensuring that the spacecraft safely entered the Mars atmosphere, descended to the surface and landed safely,” IV&V Mars2020 Project Manager Eric Sylvania said. “IV&V had an integral role in assessing and providing assurance for safety and mission- critical aspects.”
In addition, IV&V worked innovatively on the Artemis mission aiming to send Americans back to the moon. The program advanced capabilities and methods to provide assurance for complex interactions between component systems and subsystems across the mission lifecycle.
All of this was done in the midst of a “collective and coordinated” response to the COVID-19 pandemic from IV&V’s Program Support and Information Technology teams. Telework initiatives, modernized work spaces, and in-depth safety and communication measures have made the IV&V stronger in its productivity even in the challenging circumstances and presented opportunities for inventive work in the future.
IV&V leadership is lauding the inventive format of the annual report as one of the latest examples the program’s prosperous FY2020 and impact on NASA’s work and the state of West Virginia, where 51 NASA civil service employees reside earned $8.4 million in labor income last year.
“Even as life on Earth slowed and sometimes even seemed to stop during shutdowns, quarantine, and adjusting to the new normal of social distancing, NASA’s IV&V Program did not stop making strides toward achieving NASA’s great missions,” Blaney said. “The year 2020 may have brought fear, challenges, and perhaps disappointments, but it also provided us opportunities to grow, learn, overcome, be resilient, and succeed advancing the IV&V program into 2021 better than ever with an unprecedented level of success, curiosity, and hope.”
Clarissa R. Cottrill
Jr. Communications Specialist
Clarissa.r.cottrill@nasa.gov