Use of Inherited Items in Projects at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The Inherited Item Risk Assessment (IIRA) process has been developed and refined at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to ensure that Safety and Mission Assurance (SMA) requirements are chosen based on a risk assessment. Risk-based SMA is a holistic approach that allocates scarce project resources used for SMA to where they are most effective and eliminates unnecessary requirements. GSFC's traditional SMA requirements for quality, parts selection, reliability, and inspection require significant oversight of contractor work and rigorous analysis of part selection and component designs. As commercial component quality has improved over time, and some contractors have shown their capability to produce space-proven, reliable components, not all traditionally-imposed SMA requirements are needed for proven hardware. Avoiding unneeded requirements can reduce risk in space missions and decrease cost. The IIRA process helps projects and contractors select appropriate SMA requirements based on the risk profile of the mission and the proven capabilities of component and spacecraft bus suppliers. The use of IIRAs allows projects to require only those SMA deliverables from contractors that actually reduce risk, while eliminating unneeded requirements that drive up cost, prolong schedules, and sometimes may actually increase risk.