15. November 2008

NASA Uses Bugzilla for Endeavour Shuttle and International Space Station

by Bugzilla Team

On Friday, November 14, 2008, mission control at NASA had its first live use of a two new problem-tracking systems. These new systems are based on Bugzilla, with customizations by Everything Solved and the NASA Ames Research Center Human-Computer Interaction Group, with support from the San Jose State University Foundation.

The first piece of software is called PRACA (the Problem Reporting and Corrective Action System), and it is used to track problems discovered while building and testing shuttle components, so that mission control and various NASA departments can have problem-solving information at their fingertips.

PRACA will also be used for the future Constellation space program due to begin in 2010. It will replace 40 different database systems at various different departments of NASA, centralizing problem tracking for the Constellation program.

Another system based on Bugzilla, IFI (Items for Investigation), is used for tracking in-flight problems during International Space Station missions.

NASA has been an active contributor to the Bugzilla Project, funding the development of numerous upstream features in Bugzilla, including all of the new custom field types that will appear in Bugzilla 3.2, and even more custom field features that will appear in Bugzilla 3.4.

The Bugzilla Project is proud that it has been able to play such an important role in mankind’s exploration of space. We are happy that our open-source software may one day help us reach the stars.