Rocket science may be ultra-sophisticated, but it also depends on a multitude of standards, many of which are unique to space applications. With the languishing of both the Shuttle program and the commercial launch market, the standards infrastructure needed to set these standards has been lagging in development as well.

More than 50 SSOs create standards that are needed to create and support space missions. In this article we describe those that are most involved and their areas of expertise, in order to present a picture of standard setting for space applications as it exists today. We also review a recent report on inadequacies in the U.S. aerospace standards infrastructure, ...

NASA utilizes over 3,400 standards developed by more than 50 SSOs to conduct R&D and to design, deploy and manage multiple manned and unmanned missions from 11 major (and many minor) facilities. It's all done through a unique management system designed and implemented in recent years. We are pleased in this issue to present a detailed interview with Paul Gill, NASA ...

Standards are useful because they're supposed to provide fixed reference points. But often those points are based on fixed assumptions. So how do you use standards when the assumptions never apply to where you are?

Early this month we added a daily news blog to ConsortiumInfo.org to give you up-to-the-minute analysis of breaking standards news. Here's a sample.