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 houses approximately 270 employees and leverages the expertise of in-house partners and contractors.

This capability provides for multiple spot-checking throughout the SDLC and addresses those issues that can jeopardize mission safety and quality.

More specifically, WVU provided their experimental ideas and worked alongside the JSTAR team to incorporate their scientific instruments into STF-1.

By offering their software resources to this CubeSat, STF-1 has the capability of recording data once it is launched into orbit around Earth—data that can be sent directly to WVU for STEM research and the education of future scientists.

For example, these NOS technologies, among them NOS3, have demonstrated significant value in several areas such as: the James Webb Space Telescope, Global Precipitation Measurement, Juno, and Deep Space Climate Observatory in the areas of software development, mission operations/training, verification and validation, test procedure development, and software systems check-out.

The materials and training cover a wide range of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics.

The on-site student outreach program brings over 2,000 youth to the facility annually to experience workshops on robotics, rocketry, aviation, and other STEM topics.