NASA Workmanship Standards Project

The NASA Workmanship Standards Project provides technical recommendations on Workmanship policy to both the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) at NASA Headquarters. 

Workmanship is defined the control of design features, materials and assembly processes to achieve the desired durability and reliability for subassembly interconnections, specifically those in printed wiring assemblies and cable harnesses, and the use of inspection techniques and criteria to assure interconnect quality. Workmanship promotes standardized designs and fabrication practices to enhance durability and reliability and restricts the use of designs and manufacturing processes known to reduce those qualities.   

NASA policy on Workmanship is contained in NPD 8730.5, five NASA Workmanship Standards [NASA-STD-8739.1, .2, .3, .4 and .5], and one ANSI Standard [ANSI/ESD S20.20].  (See left menu bar for link to these standards).

This website serves to provide access to the NASA Workmanship Standards, training information and other important Workmanship-related data.  As a publicly-available site, the contents here have been approved for public use.  NASA personnel and NASA contracts personnel, who have a need to access standards development and technology-related information, not yet approved for public access, should apply for access to the PBMA Workmanship Workgroup at https://secureworkgroups.grc.nasa.gov.

NASA has created a NASA Workmanship Technical Committee (NWTC) to develop guidance that can be applied across the Agency and to develop the content of the technical standards. Members of the NWTC can be found herein (see link on left menu bar).  The committee also evaluates the adequacy of Voluntary Consensus Standards (VCS's) per OMB Circular A-119 and provides advocacy when appropriate. As a technical resource to the agency, the NWTC may be called upon to generate manufacturing best practice guidance to assist NASA programs to manage risk and ensure safety and mission success.