Specific overall requirements are imposed by agencies (such as NASA, ESA, CNES and MILITARY). These requirements relate to the need to address such aspects as safety factors for the Space Transportation System. An example of this is the requirement to use materials which have been previously qualified as non-stress corrosive. The information concerning such aspects is to be found in the respective Space Agency supporting documentation, processes, specification or project requirements.
For projects conducted within the European Space Agency a system of ECSS documents exists which are mandatory when called for in the contract requirements. ECSS-Q-ST-70-46 (ref 15.4) is generally found to be a good basis for this. In some cases (mainly in human spaceflight) a 'fastener integrity plan' or 'fastening system control plan' is issued to capture organization-specific processes for ensuring quality and integrity.
Quality Assurance, or as it is more commonly known in space projects, Product Assurance, has the responsibility to ensure that designers have recognised requirements of the type indicated above and that the necessary controls and verification have been conducted to ensure compliance. This ensures the traceability of materials from their source and that the specified testing and inspection is carried out. Testing can include hardness, non-destructive tests and preloading of fasteners. Inspection includes all dimensional tolerances. Additionally, all materials used in spacecraft have to be listed and reviewed for acceptability.
The controls imposed to achieve these objectives are primarily associated with the detail of planning, review, inspection and that recording of data that gives final traceability of all the information in the event of any failure.