Today is the International Day of Human Space Flight, celebrating 60 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first person to leave our planet. It’s a fitting moment to celebrate the heroic achievements of all those involved in realizing similarly remarkable feats since.
With extreme levels of accuracy required in all aspects of space flight, from the equipment to the trajectory and communications from space back to Earth, ISO has hundreds of International Standards that are used by the major space agencies around the world, including NASA and the European Space Agency.
International collaboration is essential for space initiatives, but this requires common data sharing schemes for the industry. To promote interoperability and cross-support among cooperating space agencies, the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) works with ISO technical committee ISO/TC 20, Aircraft and space vehicles, subcommittee SC 13, Space data and information transfer systems[1], to actively develop recommendations for data and information systems standards. Many of these are used in thousands of human and robotic missions by space agencies around the world, including NASA.
Badri Younes, Manager of NASA Space Communications and Navigation, points to the criticality of internationally recognized standards when missions rely upon extremely complex data for their success.
“Space missions require a high degree of accuracy in trajectory and communications, both direct-to-Earth and via relay links to one or more orbiters,” said Younes. “Internationally recognized standards, such as those produced by ISO and the CCSDS, particularly for data exchange and navigation, are highly valuable elements of our missions.”