Purpose

This Standard establishes top-level requirements and guidance for design and fabrication of ground support equipment (GSE) to assist National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space flight programs/projects in providing robust, safe, reliable, maintainable, supportable, and cost-effective GSE.

Applicability

The application of this Standard to NASA space flight programs is at the discretion of the program. This Standard recommends a set of GSE design requirements for NASA programs and projects. This Standard is intended for use in establishing uniform engineering practices and methods and ensuring that essential requirements are included in the design, procurement, and fabrication of GSE used to support the operations of receiving, transportation, handling, assembly, inspection, test, checkout, service, launch, and recovery of space vehicles and payloads at NASA's launch, landing, or retrieval locations.

This Standard is approved for use by NASA Headquarters and NASA Centers, including Component Facilities and Technical and Service Support Centers, and may be cited in contract, program, and other Agency documents as a technical requirement. This Standard may also apply to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or to contractors, grant recipients, or parties to agreements only to the extent specified or referenced in their contracts, grants, or agreements.

Requirements are numbered and indicated by the word "shall." Explanatory or guidance text is indicated in italics beginning in section 4.

Programs, projects, and elements are responsible for flowing requirements down to contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers of components at the lowest level. Program contractors may elect to manufacture deliverable GSE to flight hardware requirements if using flight hardware requirements (1) does not increase risk, (2) represents an overall cost savings, and (3) does not violate local, State, or federal laws.

Along with identifying this Standard for design and development of GSE, programs, in conjunction with Engineering and Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) organizations, have the responsibility to:

Determine categories or types of GSE (e.g., critical vs. noncritical) and any additional requirements resulting from these categories or types.

Establish and define where this Standard will be applied and when such boundaries require clarification.

Establish program- and project-specific requirements.

Establish minimum configuration management systems to retain the required documentation.

This Standard does not apply to the following:

Equipment that is used solely during the manufacturing of flight hardware.

Ground support systems (GSSs) that interface with GSE.

Facilities.

Tools.