This topic covers reports and other documentation involved in the design, development, and operation of a smallsat mission. This includes, but is not limited to, reports, procedures, logs, process travelers, tables, drawings, and slide packages. Reporting and documentation is essential to a successful mission but can be a significant time sink and driver of cost and schedule performance.
Content under this topic area primarily includes guidance on formatting, structure, and control of these documents. Note that template or example documents and reports can be found in topic pages for specific tasks throughout the Knowledge Base.
Establish a central repository for reporting and documentation. Limit access to this repository as needed to ensure that documents are not revised without proper version control.
When creating a document type for the first time, format and structure a template that others can use going forward. Design document templates for ease of update and revision. Include a revision table that tracks, at a minimum, the date and author of each revision.
The appendix of NASA's Systems Engineering Handbook provides motivation and guidance for developing various ... programmatic documents - including plans, validation matrices, assessments, and checklists. Each section presents motivation and content descriptions and/or examples for the document-type being addressed.
This section is titled "Configuration Management" and outlines describes the overall CM process, including ... inputs, activities, and outputs. It also contains several useful graphics and relevant definitions.
This resource provides a template for implementing document control in your team's workflow.
Keeping documents and data well-managed allows for greater project efficiency and dynamism. This resource ... provides standards and definitions for "reviewing, approving, distributing, revising, tracking, maintaining, and canceling" program documentation.
This paper describes NASA's Class-D approach for missions that are low cost, have short development/operations ... lifecycles, and are higher risk-posture. This is a concise document that provides "tailoring/streamlining principles" and "minimum expected practices" that can be used by any smallsat team to guide the establishment of effective and efficient processes.