When you’re launching a spacecraft that will travel six years and hundreds of millions of miles to reach Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, the answer is “very important.”
Lucy, a spacecraft set to launch in 2021, will be NASA’s first mission to study the asteroids, believed to be the leftovers from the formation of our solar system’s planets.
Show Me Quality Consulting is helping NASA ensure that its legions of suppliers - delivering everything from Lucy’s circuit boards to instruments - are meeting quality and other requirements at every stage of the process.
“We began helping with up-front support by providing feedback to customers on Supply Chain Risk Management related requirements, and conducting supplier research, analysis and commodity studies,” SMQC Vice President Olga Ceritelli explains. “After things got rolling we started supporting GSFC in assessments of the program’s suppliers and supporting the supplier assessment corrective action process.
It’s one thing to assess, it’s another to analyze what you’ve found, and that’s where SMQC supply chain analysts come in, analyzing supplier trends, analyzing available supplier data, reviewing supplier status reports, and conducting failure mode and effect analyses. Our company is able to support myriad activities that make the most of a Supply Chain Risk Management Program.
Lucy won’t launch for at least another couple of years and won’t even arrive at the asteroid system until 2027 but SMQC is proud to be helping “get it right” along the way.