Understanding IV & V in a safety critical and complex evolutionary environment: the NASA space shuttle program

Authors:
Marvin V. Zelkowitz;Ioana Rus
Affiliations:
Fraunhofer Center for Experimental, Software Engineering, Maryland and University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland;Fraunhofer Center for Experimental, Software Engineering, Maryland, 4321 Hartwick Road, Suite 500, College Park, Maryland
Venue:
ICSE '01 Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Software Engineering
Year:
2001

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Abstract

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an internationally recognized leader in space science and exploration. NASA recognizes the inherent risk associated with space exploration; however, NASA makes every reasonable effort to minimize that risk. To that end for the Space Shuttle program NASA instituted a software independent verification and validation (IV&V) process in 1988 to ensure that the Shuttle and its crew are not exposed to any unnecessary risks. Using data provided by both the Shuttle software developer and the IV&V contractor, in this paper we describe the overall IV&V process as used on the Space Shuttle program and provide an analysis of the use of metrics to document and control this process. Our findings reaffirm the value of IV&V and show the impact IV&V has on multiple releases of a large complex software system.