Streamlining Costs and Increasing Fiscal Accountability - An Integrated Approach to Financial Cost Tracking and Reporting on Rapid Development Satellite Projects

As the dust settles upon a decade of developing faster, better, cheaper satellites, NASA's Small Explorer (SMEX) Project has been one of constant change. The project manager, mission manager, and lead subsystem engineer of yesteryear may find themselves out of date should they ignore the budget constraints/changes over the past decade. Yesterday's fiscal reporting and cost tracking processes are seldom valid today, and even less likely to be valid tomorrow.