Frequently Asked Questions
To enable industry and international entities to independently develop systems for deep space exploration that would be compatible aboard any spacecraft, irrelevant of the spacecraft developer.
The draft standards were developed collaboratively with support from NASA and the International Space Station (ISS) Partner Agencies.
For an international standard to be used it needs to be freely available to interested companies and space agencies.
Providing drafts and encouraging feedback from a broader community will support global contributions to the standards and improve the content before finalizing the Interoperability Standards documents.
These eight documents focus on topics prioritized in this early phase of exploration planning that will help enable development of compatible systems and elements for deep space exploration.
These standards are meant to be applicable to all deep space environments, although the first potential instance of application may be the Gateway and Human Landing System.
These draft standards will be updated with baseline versions the once signature process is completed. It is expected that the avionics, communications, environmental control and life support, space power, rendezvous, and external robotics interoperability standards baseline versions will be posted this summer followed by the remaining later this year.
Anyone will be able to design compatible systems at the interface level if they implement these standards.
These deep space exploration standards are based on ISS standards with additional lessons learned incorporated from the collective experience of the international community and leverage existing globally recognized standards where possible.
Yes, the following standards are available:
Comments are encouraged and will be included in the next review cycle. With respect to the new software interoperability standard, please submit comments as soon as possible and no later than September 13, 2019 to support the baseline revision release. Comments submitted later will be considered for future revisions.