How to write a Detail Specification.

These are the Product Assurance rules the component must be compliant with, and therefore a core asset to write our specification. These requirements are of course influenced by the Class (1, 2 or 3) of our project.

Is the project a European based project? Is it a NASA one? Is the specification for custom development or a commercial Space project? These questions may not seem important at a first glance but are key to decide a template for our specification. For example, if the parts are intended for an ESA Project, it may be interesting to use as a template an ESCC Detail Specification. However, the decision of the template to be used is also highly influenced by…

If the part manufacturer is European, it seems a good idea to follow the ESCC specification system template. On the contrary, if the manufacturer is USA based, using the DLA MIL specification systems seems more appropriate. Again, this is more like a tip, as it is not unusual that some European manufacturers manufactures can provide MIL grade QPL parts as well as ESCC QPL parts.

The next step, once the general specification system has been selected, is to go down on the specific family of our component. Generic specifications are different in testing, parameters definition and important features from one component family to another (for example: connector specifications may not have similar content than microcircuit specifications). Detail specifications go down on a specific sub-family. Therefore, if the component family-group is known, we can choose a specification for similar components as a template.