Quality Assurance & Standards in Space Projects

Quality assurance (QA) is a system in which the tasks to be performed are planned to meet the quality requirements of the project activities. It is one of the six major disciplines for product assurance (PA) according to European Corporation for Space Standardization (ECSS). This paper focuses on presenting the brief structure of PA and QA standards for space projects and summarizes the required systematic scheme of quality assurance tasks. The importance of establishing and maintaining a QA system that can prevent major nonconformities or take appropriate dispositions in case of occurring nonconformance has been emphasized. For such a QA system, it is necessary to benefit from various standards that are the result of many years of experience in different places of the world. General guidance for the establishment of a successful QA system is provided by defining key standards. After defining the PA and QA approaches according to the major authorities, the differences between the terms PA and QA are clarified. Then, the QA tasks to be performed as part of the project activities in accordance with the ECSS are defined according to the phases of the project.