Software Assurance Challenges for the Commercial Crew Program

This paper will provide a description of some of the challenges NASA is facing in providing software assurance within the new commercial space services paradigm, namely with the Commercial Crew Program (CCP). The CCP will establish safe, reliable, and affordable access to the International Space Station (ISS) by purchasing a ride from commercial companies. The CCP providers have varying experience with software development in safety-critical space systems. NASA's role in providing effective software assurance support to the CCP providers is critical to the success of CCP. These challenges include funding multiple vehicles that execute in parallel and have different rules of engagement, multiple providers with unique proprietary concerns, providing equivalent guidance to all providers, permitting alternates to NASA standards, and a large number of diverse stakeholders. It is expected that these challenges will exist in future programs, especially if the CCP paradigm proves successful. The proposed CCP approach to address these challenges includes a risk-based assessment with varying degrees of engagement and a distributed assurance model. This presentation will describe NASA IV&V Program's software assurance support and responses to these challenges.