Space Vehicle Design Criteria Archive, 1964-1979

The AIAA Space Transportation Technical Committee is pleased to present this archive of the NASA Space Vehicle Design Criteria project that was conducted from the mid 1960s through the late 1970s. It was originally conducted in a time frame when the manned Mercury and Gemini space flight programs had been completed, the Apollo program was nearing its end, and the Space Shuttle program that was to be the prime focus of NASA space transportation system was in its infancy. Satellites had been launched and recovered for over ten years and the great interplanetary voyages had been begun.
This wide ranging series of monographs was originally developed to provide a uniform basis for the design of flightworthy space vehicles. They summarized the significant experience and knowledge that had been accumulated in research, development, and operational programs by that time. They were intended to be used as guidelines, not requirements, in space vehicle design and development.
The documents are divided into four categories:

• Chemical Propulsion (35 documents)
• Environment (26 documents)
• Guidance and Control (21 documents)
• Structures (46 documents)

Each monograph summarizes the then state of the art in design practices and identifies important aspects of the state of technology for the particular subject being assessed. Each goes on to state what rules, guides, or limitations must be imposed to ensure flightworthiness - and these criteria could then serve as a checklist for guiding a design or assessing its adequacy.
Now, more than thirty years later, these monographs provide a unique historical perspective on state of the art in space vehicle design at that time. While the technology in nearly every field has advanced manyfold, the actual physics behind each topic has not changed.
By applying uniform criteria across the board to the new systems that must be developed over the next years, those systems can be made more reliable.