The Small Satellite Reliability Initiative (SSRI), in conjunction with NASA’s Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute (S3VI), is developing the SSRI Knowledge Base: a comprehensive online tool that consolidates and organizes resources, best practices, and lessons learned from previous small satellite missions. This tool aims to improve mission confidence for future small spacecraft.

The SSRI Knowledge Base provides vetted, high-quality sources of information on key elements of a successful small satellite mission. These resources include original SSRI-generated content in addition to existing guides, publications, standards, software tools, websites, and books. Knowledge base content is provided for download when possible and otherwise linked or referenced from the Knowledge Base.

Users navigate the Mission Confidence Framework (MCF) to access topic pages in the Knowledge Base. This interface is an interactive tree diagram that allows users to expand sections and subsections and to preview topic descriptions, quickly taking them to their desired topic page.

Topic pages in the MCF are organized by mission phase and task. Topics include but may not limited to: Mission Architecture Design, Licensing and Regulations, Design Reviews, Mechanical and Thermal Design, Thermal Analysis, Radiation Analysis, Flight Software Development, Electrical Power Subsystem Design, Vibration Testing, Thermal Cycle Testing, Day-in-the-Life Testing, Launch Procurement, and On-Orbit Fault Recovery.

Acknowledging the constant increase and varied sources of small satellite knowledge, along with the value and depth of knowledge that exist beyond any single development team, the SSRI Knowledge Base is designed to be an open, collaborative platform. User participation is essential to the refinement and growth of the Knowledge Base. Therefore, users are encouraged to rate resources and to submit feedback, questions, lessons learned, and best practices over the course of their mission timeline.

The need for a comprehensive and evolving resource like the SSRI Knowledge Base continues to grow as small spacecraft mission architectures become increasingly complex and diverse.

The SSRI is an activity with broad participation from NASA, other government agencies, academia, and commercial space systems providers and stakeholders. The SSRI plans to work with the S3VI to develop tools that share information with the small satellite community and improve mission confidence for small satellites while, to the extent practical, considering the constraints and maintaining the efficiencies associated with these missions.

The SSRI Knowledge Base is available to the entire SmallSat community at https://s3vi.ndc.nasa.gov/ssri-kb/