QMS & EMS London

For the better part of five decades, commercial access to space has been limited by the high cost of flight operations. However, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has rewritten the rules by adopting a new business model and cutting-edge technologies to enhance reliability and reduce the cost of space access. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy (currently under development) will be the world’s most powerful rocket, with three Falcon 9 cores and more than twice the payload-to-orbit capacity of the space shuttle, but at only one-third the cost. It is expected to be the first rocket to break the $1,000-per-pound-to-orbit barrier, less than a tenth as much as the NASA space shuttle.

Representing the first international effort to formulate a quality management system standard for the aerospace industry, the two-year-old AS9100 is beginning to show its long-term value. The standard supplements ISO 9001 by addressing the additional expectations of the aerospace industry. Already, reports along this complicated manufacturing chain attest to–among other benefits–AS9100's contribution to more consistent verification methods and fewer verification audits.