NASA Procedural Requirements

NPR 8735.2C Effective Date: March 12, 2021 Expiration Date: March 12, 2026

Subject: Hardware Quality Assurance Program Requirements for Programs and Projects (Updated w/Change 2)

Responsible Office: Office of Safety and Mission Assurance

Chapter 2. Roles and Responsibilities

2.1 NASA Chief, Safety and Mission Assurance

2.1.1 The Chief, SMA is responsible for:

a. Establishing the accepted standard requirements for QA for NASA programs and projects.

b. Designating a Technical Liaison to the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) to:

(1) Assess DCMA's programmatic and technical performance for assigned QA tasks, across all projects.

(2) Coordinate with the following entities to address and resolve programmatic or technical issues related to Government Contract Quality Assurance (GCQA) functions delegated to DCMA:

(a) DCMA management.

(b) NASA DCMA Center Integrators.

(c) NASA project QA personnel who are assigned the duties of delegating work to DCMA.

(d) Program-level and project-level procurement and resource authorities.

(e) OSMA.

(3) Coordinate with the entities in 2.1.1.b(2) above for generating new work delegations to DCMA, for updating statements of work for delegated tasks, and for generating annual updates to those statements of work and to their associated budgets.

2.2 NASA Center Director

2.2.1 The NASA Center Director is responsible for:

a. Providing leadership and resources for the Center's compliance with the QMS requirements herein.

b. Providing leadership and resources for compliance with the quality data management requirements herein.

2.3 NASA Center SMA Director

a. Center-level, cross-cutting hardware QE and QA requirements and processes are established within the Center's QMS for hardware developed, manufactured, and/or processed for projects assigned to the Center.

b. That leadership roles and responsibilities for Project QA program management are assigned to an individual(s) who is a subject matter expert in the quality engineering and quality assurance disciplines.

c. That quality subject matter experts are assigned leadership roles for executing the processes associated with defining and delegating GCQA functions to DCMA (see Chapter 8 herein).

d. Programs and projects QA program formulation, management, and execution adheres to the Center's QMS requirements and processes.

e. That QE and QA discipline support is provided to projects including but not limited to:

(1) QE and QA subject matter experts and appropriately trained and certified QA personnel.

(2) QE and Project QA program strategies that are traceable to those defined herein.

(3) QE and QA procedures.

(4) Cross-discipline experts, as needed, within the SMA domain who provide inputs to the program or project for identifying and managing quality risks (e.g., crew-safety, reliability, software assurance).

2.4 NASA Program or Project Manager

2.4.1 NASA Program or Project Managers, hereafter referred to as Project Managers, are responsible for:

a. Establishing a Project QA program and QA program management function that addresses the requirements herein with or without tailoring in order to meet the mission success objectives within the programmatic constraints.

b. Delivering evidence of Project QA program maturity and execution at life cycle and key decision point (KDP) reviews that is commensurate with the project's point in their life cycle. See Appendix F for recommended Life-Cycle Review (LCR) criteria and deliverables for Project QA Programs.

c. Coordinating with the Project QA program management function (see 2.4.1.a) to:

(1) Formulate and execute a Project QA program that maximizes alignment with the responsible NASA Center's SMA policies and QMS.

(2) Define the requisite programmatic resources required for executing the Project QA Program.

(3) Facilitating cross-discipline collaborations as needed for effective strategy building, planning, QA program execution, and problem solving.

(4) Obtain insight and context about Project QA program strategies, plans, execution results, problem resolution, and risk management.

(5) Obtain quality assurance stakeholder review and concurrence for all procurement products for mission hardware including requests for proposals, contracts, task orders, and purchase orders.

Note: Engineering and quality assurance stakeholders are part of the internal Government team and their input assures that the requirements flowed to the suppliers via these procurement products are fully traceable to the Project QA Plan and the requirements herein.

d. Identify and manage QA risks (e.g., product or process nonconformities, supplier quality deficiencies, and technology immaturity obstacles to defining quality controls).

2.4.2 When there is no NASA Project Management Office, the NASA Program Manager is accountable for the implementation of a QA program for projects not managed by NASA and is responsible for:

a. Flowing down Project Manager responsibilities and all relevant programmatic and technical requirements herein to the non-NASA project-managing entity through contracts or other partnership agreements.

b. Ensuring responsibilities and requirements not flowed down to the non-NASA project-managing entity are implemented.

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