Small Spacecraft Community of Practice
Subscribe to receive announcements for the Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute’s (S3VI) monthly webinar series and quarterly newsletter here. We look forward to your participation!
Phasing in COTS EEE Parts in NASA
Speaker: Jesse Leitner, Ph.D., NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
10:00AM-11:00AM Pacific Daylight Time
Click here to watch the webinar.
Click here to download the presentation.
Please contact Julianna.L.Fishman@nasa.gov if you experience issues with the audiovisual connection to this webinar.
Abstract: A number of activities within NASA and the space community, as well as growing technology needs and supply chain changes have accelerated the need to expand the use of COTS parts within NASA. While the use of COTS has been formally institutionalized and deemed acceptable for Class D space missions and those with greater tolerance for risk, there is still a lack of understanding of how to most effectively use COTS in such high risk-tolerance missions, and no apparent path towards broad use in missions with much less tolerance for risk. However, the reality is that the fundamental limitations of technology associated with the military specification system combined with the need to fly newer technologies in upcoming flagship robotic missions and human space flight missions will ultimately demand a more expansive use of COTS. The infinite nature of COTS gives rise to numerous challenges in the selection, acceptance, testing, and usage of COTS when reliable operation is essential. This presentation will highlight some of the current artifacts of a NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) study on the use of COTS parts, as well as many of the historical through current facts about parts assurance within Agency to provide a path forward for reliable use of COTS for a range of space applications and risk postures.
Bio: Jesse Leitner has served as the Chief Safety and Mission Assurance Engineer for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center since 2009, responsible for the technical direction for NASA GSFC’s Directorate for Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA). In this role, he develops policies and procedures to ensure technical excellence and engineering integrity for SMA practices across GSFC; coordinates, recommends solutions for, and reports on problems and issues across the Center; and facilitates technical coordination for activities in engineering, SMA, and projects and programs at GSFC. He was the principal creator of the risk-based SMA organization at GSFC, including organizational structure, new positions, and a range of processes, procedures, and standards involving risk analysis and risk-based assurance approaches. Dr. Leitner has performed aggregate risk assessments for a variety of missions including Parker Solar Probe and the James Webb Space Telescope, and he was a major contributor to the Science Mission Directorate Standard Mission Assurance Requirements for Payload Classification D (SPD-39) published in April, 2021. Dr. Leitner received an MS and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech in the area of Flight Mechanics and Control and a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
S3VI encourages the community to submit questions before the webinar to enable more directed responses. Please send questions to craig.d.burkhard@nasa.gov.
