NASA’s Facilities Strategy: NASA will renew and modernize its facilities to sustain its capabilities, and accommodate those capabilities in the most efficient facilities set practical

NASA’s mission is to drive advances in science, technology, aeronautics, and space exploration to enhance knowledge, education, innovation, economic vitality, and stewardship of the Earth. To meet its mission, NASA must provide an innovative work environment and the facilities necessary to support the highly technical objectives of NASA’s work. In support of NASA’s mission, the NASA facilities program focuses on:

• Mitigation of the risks resulting from a highly complex and aging infrastructure
• Making investments in NASA’s core program and strategic capabilities
• Reducing operating costs through use of technology to improve maintenance, energy management, sustainability, consolidation, and disposing of un-needed facilities
• Leveraging NASA’s core capabilities through partnerships to make NASA’s unique technical facilities available to the US aerospace industry

NASA is implementing its facilities strategy by maintaining masterplans that establish the long term vision and requirements for the Agency. These masterplans provide the underpinning for both long term and short term investment strategies. Capital investment plans establish near and mid-term investment goals and projects, balancing NASA’s long term goals against near term risk reduction investments and specific program requirements.

NASA’s Facilities and Real Estate Division, provides functional leadership for all Agency facility engineering programs, including master-planning, facility planning, design, construction, operations, maintenance, real estate management, real estate agreements, disposal, energy management and utility management. The division manages NASA’s Construction of Facilities program and NASA’s Strategic Capabilities Asset Program.

The division provides consulting and many enabling and analysis tools to support decision making about NASA’s real estate and infrastructure. This includes assessment studies such as the annual facilities assessment, and various studies to align facilities capabilities with program requirements. It also includes focused technical studies to evaluate specific facilities or facilities problems.

The division provides oversight and consulting on the development and execution of partnering agreements that leverage NASA’s real estate.

The division has established best practices in facilities engineering through 2 communities of practice, the Engineering and Construction Innovations Committee (ECIC) and the Operations and Maintenance of Facilities Innovations Team (OMFIT). These 2 Agency wide communities work with professional organizations and industry partners to identify best practices within the industry and integrate the practices into NASA’s facilities program.

The division manages the following tools:

• The Aerospace Technical Facility Inventory
• The NASA Real Property Management System
• NASA’s Infrastructure GIS
• SPECSINTACT