NASA Systems Engineering Processes and Requirements w/Change

P.1 Purpose
The purpose of this document is to clearly articulate and establish the requirements on the implementing organization for performing, supporting, and evaluating systems engineering. Systems engineering is a logical systems approach performed by multidisciplinary teams to engineer an integrate NASA's systems to ensure NASA products meet customers' needs. Implementation of this systems approach will enhance NASA's core engineering, management, and scientific capabilities and processes to ensure safety and mission success, increase performance, and reduce cost. This systems approach is applied to all elements of a system and all hierarchical levels of a system over the complete project life cycle.

P.2 Applicability and Scope

a. This NASA Procedural Requirement (NPR) applies to NASA Headquarters and NASA Centers, including component facilities and technical and service support centers. It also applies to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to the extent specified in its contracts with NASA. This NPR applies to NASA employees and their service contractors that use NASA processes to augment and support NASA technical work. NASA NPRs and this Systems Engineering NPR (SE NPR) do not apply to NASA contracts except as the NASA technical team flows down the systems engineering responsibilities to all members of the system team, including contractors and subcontractors. (See Chapter 4.)

b. The scope of this document encompasses the common technical processes for large and small projects and activities in flight systems and ground support (FS&GS) projects, advanced technology development (ATD) projects with deliverables to FS&GS projects, information systems and technology projects, and institutional projects (IP). Application of this NPR to Construction of Facilities (CoF) and Environmental Compliance and Restoration (ECR) projects (or portions thereof) should be scaled in accordance with the level of systems engineering for the function of the structure and documented in the systems engineering management plan (SEMP) (as required). In this sense, the design of facilities (or parts of facilities) for processing FS&GS activities would require appropriate application of systems engineering effort, ensuring that interfaces with and functional requirements of the FS&GS systems engineering are addressed. The design of administrative facilities or soil remediation projects may not require the application of specific systems engineering efforts. Engineering requirements for CoF and ECR projects are specified in NPR 8820.2 and NPR 8590.1, respectively. Applying the common technical processes and reviews may also benefit basic and applied research (BAR) and other ATD projects. They are recommended but not required for BAR and ATD projects.