Delivering software into NASA's Mission Control Center using agile development techniques

The traditional software engineering approach at NASA uses a waterfall model. While this results in software that meets the requirements and is functionally correct, it may not result in the safest software, as verification and validation do not consider the software's usability. Since flight controllers need to make time-sensitive decisions based on telemetry, the flexibility and usability of the software are as important as the ability to accurately view telemetry. For example, the International Space Station has over 150,000 pieces of telemetry, so requiring all possible combinations of displays to be defined ahead of time is not practical. Thus, the ability to quickly visualize ad hoc telemetry groupings is important. This paper describes the process the Mission Control Technologies project uses to deliver innovative software while ensuring the software can be used in a mission-critical environment. The process has successfully delivered multiple customer-selected releases into the Mission Control Center operational environment.