NASA's Independent Verification & Validation (IV&V) Program was established in 1993 as part of an agency-wide strategy to provide the highest achievable levels of safety and cost-effectiveness for mission critical software. NASA's IV&V Program was founded under the NASA Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) as a direct result of recommendations made by the National Research Council (NRC) and the Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Since then, NASA's IV&V Program has experienced growth in personnel, projects, capabilities, and accomplishments. NASA IV&V efforts have contributed to NASA's improved safety record since the program's inception. Today, Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) is an Agency-level function, delegated from OSMA to Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and managed by NASA IV&V. NASA's IV&V Program's primary business, software IV&V, is sponsored by OSMA as a software assurance technology. Having been reassigned as GSFC, NASA IV&V is Code 180 (Center Director's direct report).
NASA's IV&V Program houses approximately 270 employees and leverages the expertise of in-house partners and contractors. Its facilities are located in Fairmont, West Virginia. In the summer, high school and college interns are employed in addition.
On February 22, 2019, the facility was renamed to the Katherine Johnson Independent Verification and Validation Facility in honor of Katherine Johnson, an African-American woman who worked as a mathematician at NASA for 35 years and who is featured in the 2016 film Hidden Figures.
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