The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) have established policies that embrace the use of government, industry, and professional society specifications and standards to define program technical baselines. The effort includes the processes for the evaluation, selection, and preparation of documents and also the processes and ground rules for implementation as compliance documents in requests for proposals and contracts.
Aerospace plays an integral role in the review of existing technical standards, the development and publication of new standards in several engineering disciplines, and the implementation of standards in the acquisition process for new systems. Aerospace, NRO, and SMC compiled a list of the key standards and have kept the list updated and published as an Aerospace technical report. Eventually, appropriate documents will be revised and reissued as military, industrial, or international standards. For example, five Aerospace standards were recently issued as AIAA standards. In the meantime, Aerospace technical reports will be used as compliance documents.
—Valerie Lang, Joe Meltzer, and Jacqueline Unitis