Richard B. Katz1, Rod L. Barto1, and Kevin Hames2
1 NASA Office of Logic Design
2 NASA Johnson Space CenterSummary
The Office of Logic Design formed an Independent Assessment Team (IAT) and conducted a review of a mission-critical digital system for an Air Force project. Although numerous design issues were uncovered, the review was considered to be successful by both the Air Force and the contractor. This paper discusses the technology and key technical findings, the review methodologies used, the progress of the review, and aspects of the programmatic environment that contributed to the review's success. Also discussed are corporate and technical issues that created difficulties for the project, including the use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) devices.
The first section of the paper will focus on the technical findings. This will start out with a review of the technologies employed along with the inherent weakness of the devices for this class of applications, specifically the use and implications of COTS. Building on that, representative findings from the circuit analysis will be presented. Finally, results of the test program will be analyzed. This leads to technical lessons learned.
The second portion of the paper will discuss corporate issues that created or increased difficulties for the project. This will be shown to be an industry-wide phenomena and is not peculiar to either the Air Force in particular or the Department of Defense in general. These are lessons re-learned.
Thirdly, the paper will detail how the review was conducted and progressed, along with key aspects of the programmatic environment that enabled a rapid, efficient, successful review, with consensus quickly achieved between the IAT, the Air Force, and the contractor . A comparative analysis will be made of other similar reviews, conducted under different programmatic environments. Positive lessons learned and recommendations will be presented.