Glossary

RTM, ICD, ConOps, MOE, MOP, TPM, DTR, and the rest.

Common terms used throughout Blueprint's artifacts and documentation, drawn from the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook (NASA SP-2016-6105 Rev 2) and related practice.

A

Artifact — A structured output node produced by Blueprint (stakeholder, requirement, component, trade study, risk, etc.). Every artifact has citations back to the part of your Brief or upstream artifacts that produced it.

B

Brief — The mission specification you submit to Blueprint. See What is a Brief.

C

CDR — Critical Design Review. The phase gate at which the design is considered complete enough to begin fabrication in full.

Citation — A reference from one artifact back to the source material (Brief passage or upstream artifact) it was derived from.

Component — A physical or logical piece of the system. Output of the Decomposition stage.

ConOps — Concept of Operations. A description of how the system will be used in its operational environment. Captured in the Stakeholder stage's operational scenarios.

Constraint — A bound the system must not violate (mass, power, cost, schedule). One of four requirement types.

Critic — Internal quality-gate stage that runs after Design. May trigger Revisions.

CU — Compute Unit. The metering unit Blueprint uses. 1 CU ≈ $0.01 of underlying compute cost. See Pricing & Compute Units.

CUI — Controlled Unclassified Information. A US-government classification for unclassified-but-protected data. Blueprint is not authorized for CUI. See Acceptable Use Policy.

D

Decomposition — Stage 4. Breaks the system into functions, components, interfaces, and design-to-requirement allocations.

DTR — Design-to-Requirement allocation. A mapping from a requirement to the component(s) responsible for satisfying it.

E

EAR — Export Administration Regulations. US export-control rules for dual-use technology. Blueprint does not accept EAR-controlled data.

Enabling Product — A supporting item required for the mission that is not part of the system itself (e.g., ground station, launch vehicle). Output of the Stakeholder stage.

F

Function — Something the system does. Output of the Decomposition stage's functional hierarchy.

G

Gate Readiness — Stage 8. Assesses whether the artifact bundle is mature enough to pass each of the standard phase gates (SRR, SDR, PDR, CDR).

H

HSI — Human Systems Integration. Considerations about how human operators interact with the system. Captured in the Stakeholder stage.

I

ICD — Interface Control Document. Specifies an interface between two components in enough detail to allow independent implementation.

Interface — A defined point at which two components exchange information, energy, or matter. First-class artifact in the Decomposition stage.

ITAR — International Traffic in Arms Regulations. US export- control rules for defense articles and related technical data. Blueprint does not accept ITAR-controlled data.

M

MOE — Measure of Effectiveness. A mission-level metric for whether the system is succeeding at its intent. Output of the Stakeholder stage.

MOP — Measure of Performance. A system-level metric for whether the system is meeting its specification. Output of the Requirements stage.

N

NGO — Needs, Goals, Objectives. Stakeholder-perspective statements of what the system must achieve. Output of the Stakeholder stage.

P

Phase — A pipeline configuration setting. Phase 1.1 stops after Stakeholder analysis; Phase 1.4 (the default) produces the full artifact set.

PDR — Preliminary Design Review. The phase gate at which the design is mature enough to begin fabrication of long-lead items.

R

Requirement — A statement of what the system must do. Four types: functional, performance, interface, constraint. Output of the Requirements stage.

Risk — A statement of what could go wrong, with a likelihood and impact score. Output of the Risk Assessor (runs alongside Design).

RTM — Requirements Traceability Matrix. A table showing every requirement and the NGO(s) it traces to. Generated as part of the render.

S

SDR — System Design Review. The phase gate at which a coherent baseline architecture is considered to exist.

Sensitivity tier — A submission-time setting that controls which LLM providers your Brief is routed to. Currently: Unrestricted, Confidential. (Controlled is reserved for future release.)

SRR — System Requirements Review. The phase gate at which requirements are considered complete and verifiable.

Stakeholder — A party with an interest in the system. Output of the Brief Parser (seeds) and Stakeholder stage (refined and added).

T

TPM — Technical Performance Measure. A component-level engineering budget metric (mass, power, link margin, etc.). Output of the Requirements stage.

Trade Study — A documented decision between alternatives, with weighted criteria, scores, and rationale. Output of the Design stage.

V

Verification vs Validation — Two distinct activities:

Verification asks "did we build the system right?" — does it meet the requirements
Validation asks "did we build the right system?" — does it meet the stakeholder needs

Both activities are output by the Design stage for each component.