Software System Safety & The NASA Aeronautics Blueprint

NASA’s Aeronautics Blueprint lays out a research agenda for the Agency’s aeronautics program. The word software appears only four times in this Blueprint, but the critical importance of safe and correct software to the fulfillment of the proposed research is evident on almost every page. Most of the technology solutions proposed to address challenges in aviation are softwaredependent technologies. Of the fifty-two specific technology solutions described in the Blueprint, forty-one depend, at least in part, on software for success. For thirty-five of these forty-one, software is not only critical to success, but also to human safety. That is, implementing the technology solutions will require using software in such a way that it may, if not specified, designed, and implemented properly, lead to fatal accidents. These results have at least two implications for the research based on the Blueprint: (1) knowledge about the current state-of-theart and state-of-the-practice in software engineering and software system safety is essential, and (2) research into current unsolved problems in these software disciplines is also essential.