Stennis Tool Enables Unified Collection of Test Data
Summary
The accuracy of the data produced during hot fire tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, tells the performance story. So, when NASA needed a standardized way to collect hot fire data across test facilities, an onsite team created an adaptable software tool to do it. It allows engineers to seamlessly work between test areas, even when upgrades have been made and hardware has changed, to support hot fire requirements for the agency and commercial customers. The NASA Stennis team wrote the NDAS software code with modular components that function independently and can be updated to meet the needs of each test facility. “The developers are responsive to the team’s ideas for improvement, and our experience has consistently improved with the changes that enable us to view our data in new ways.” Originally designed to support the RPT office at NASA Stennis, the software is expanding beyond south Mississippi to other test centers, attracting interest from various NASA programs and projects, and garnering attention from government agencies that require reliable and scalable data acquisition.