SMC-S-013 Reliability Program for Space Systems

“Published by the U.S. Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC),The SMC-S-013 “Reliability program for space systems” standard describes general reliability requirements for space contracts involving the design, development (both hardware and software), manufacture, testing, and operation of space vehicles, spacecraft bus, payloads (including those provided as government-supplied equipment), and launch vehicles.

The reliability requirements specified in this standard are for space and launch system acquisition programs. The requirements apply to all prime, partner, and sub-tier contractors.

Contractors are responsible for planning and implementing a reliability program consistent with the program risk tolerance posture and contract requirements. All tasks described in this standard are subject to adaptation to achieve an optimum reliability program that takes into account programmatic and mission requirements. Examples of programmatic requirements include program resources, single-point-of-failure strategy, build-buy strategy (hardware and software), on-orbit anomaly handling and resolution, downtime and restore time requirements, and relative importance of the program to the customer. Mission requirements include factors such as design life, mean mission duration, reliability, maintainability, availability, success metrics, program class, and rating metrics. These requirements can determine which reliability tasks can be adapted without an unacceptable increase in program risk.

The reliability tasks in this standard include tasks that are typically applied to a space/launch vehicle program. Each space/launch vehicle program includes all or a subset of the tasks described in this standard. The specific reliability tasks assigned to a contractor depend on a variety of factors associated with each contract, such as mission objectives, mission criticality, budget constraints, statement of objectives, statement of work, deliverables, and the like.

The contractor's reliability organization is an important factor in the effectiveness of the implementation of the reliability requirements in this standard. The contractor shall have a defined reliability organization and plan. This organization shall be responsible for planning and managing the contract reliability program plan and ensuring its effective execution.

The reliability program requirements specified in this standard require:

• Documented and effectively planned management of the reliability effort.
• Implementation of a set of reliability program activities that are consistent with reliability requirements and sufficient to reduce reliability risks to achieve mission success.
• Participation in the design process simultaneously with the evolution of the system design to ensure that reliability requirements are reflected in the final design.
• Participation in the software development process to ensure reliability, recovery and diagnostic requirements are reflected in the design and transferred to unit and integration testing.
• Description of key reliability tasks and their place as an integral part of the design, development and verification process.
• Planning and evaluating the reliability of the system and its elements through a program of analysis, review and testing coordinated with quality assurance and all test planning functions, ensuring maximum coverage of reliability requirements, availability and recovery time requirements, and minimizing repetitive or duplicate testing.
• Timely status indication through documentation and other reporting methods to facilitate control of the reliability program.

The appendix titled “Contractor reliability data elements” lists the reliability program plan and other qualification data defined in this standard (Appendix A). These data convey technical information to support technical decisions, provide visibility to assess the reliability status of the equipment, and provide visibility to assess the overall reliability program. Specific requirements for the data are specified in the program contract data requirements list.

The general requirements in this standard are described as follows:

• Reliability Program: The Contractor and subcontractors shall implement and maintain a reliability hardware/software program that is planned, scheduled, integrated, and developed in conjunction with other design, development, and manufacturing functions in accordance with the contractual statement of work, the requirements of this standard, and the program plan approved by the purchasing procurement agency. The Contractor shall establish and maintain an internal system of directives, procedures, instructions, specifications, and guides to implement the contractually required reliability program. The program effort level shall be sufficient to meet the contractual quantitative and qualitative reliability requirements and to support the economic achievement of the overall program objectives. The tasks and requirements apply to both hardware and software design.

Reliability and related requirement allocations: Quantitative instrument contractual reliability requirements shall be allocated to subsystems, software, components, or component parts to the extent necessary to specify an allocated reliability value for a structured item specification and to verify compliance with system-level reliability and related requirements for those items. The Supplier shall document methods, models, ground rules, assumptions, limitations, and proposed verification methodologies for reliability and related requirement allocation in the reliability plan.

Legacy hardware and software: For space-qualified legacy hardware and software, the parameters used in the model and analyses should be consistent with operational historical data or other previously accepted values. In cases where these values ​​are not sufficient to meet the allocated requirements, revised allocations and analyses are performed if off-the-shelf hardware requires modification to meet reliability specification requirements.

• Quantitative requirements: Minimum acceptable element reliability shall be as specified in the configuration element specification. Quantitative reliability requirements for all major elements are specified in the appropriate section of each specification. Quantitative values ​​not defined by the system specification and to be allocated from the system requirements are determined by the contractor.
• Integration with other requirements: The reliability program effort is closely coordinated with systems engineering, design engineering, and test programs, as well as configuration management and integrated logistics support functions. The reliability program is also closely integrated with related engineering disciplines and technical expertise in quality assurance (hardware and software), maintainability (hardware and software), human engineering, system safety, software development, and parts, materials, and process control to avoid duplication of effort and produce integrated cost-effective results.

Our organization, which has been trying to support businesses from every sector with its testing, measurement, analysis and evaluation studies carried out in a wide range for years, has a strong staff that closely follows the developments in the world in the field of science and technology and constantly improves itself. In this context, testing services in accordance with the "SMC-S-013 Reliability Program for Space Systems" standard are also provided to businesses.