The New Space approach will be explored by progressing through the life cycle of a mechanism from  concept through flight. A discussion of opportunities to meet the low-cost demands of New Space with  good reliability and acceptable performance will be provided. Differences between New Space and Big  Space will be brought out in the discussion    Mechanisms Considerations for New Space: Requirements and Design Phase  Requirements  Perhaps the concept of working to minimized requirements is the biggest cost saving of the entire New  Space endeavor. New Space programs attempt to pare their technical requirements down to the  minimum necessary to satisfy a business case. Additionally, they are paring their mission assurance  requirements down to the minimum necessary to produce the reliability necessary to support the business  case. The amazingly low cost of cubesats and smallsats relative to Big Space is possibly a direct result of  this approach to minimizing requirements.    Selection of appropriate requirements is extremely important to any engineering effort, and mechanisms  for New Space is no different. The downward cost pressure and tight schedules of New Space greatly  amplifies the importance of minimizing requirements. In contrast, the author has observed requirements  development in the world of Big Space stemming from a pervasive mindset of choosing requirements  equal to the best that can possibly be done. While this gives engineers fascinating challenges and has  produced satellites with amazing capability, this mindset is incompatible with low cost.    Customer and supplier both need to realize that they both will benefit from the easiest acceptable level of  requirements. The customer will get the product they need at the low cost they also need. The supplier  will have the best chance of success as their task becomes less challenging. A true win – win.    To provide a good low-cost mechanism questions such as the following should be considered jointly by  customer and supplier:  •Is this level of performance absolutely necessary? •Is this required feature / capability absolutely necessary? •Is this quality / mission assurance requirement going to be cost effective? A mechanism provider should first assess for themselves, and then enlighten their requirement source  about cost savings considerations using questions such as:  •Are you aware that this specific requirement is a significant cost driver for the mechanism? •We have found that a given quality process has been largely unnecessary and recommend its elimination, can you concur? •A given quality process is redundant since it is checking for issues that will be uncovered by this other process which we have found to be cost effective, will this be acceptable to you? A person setting requirements should be asking the mechanism provider questions such as:  •What can I change in my specification to make your cost lower? •Do you think I am asking for more than I really need? The eight questions above can be used to identify and eliminate many unnecessary requirements. Time  and money must be spent to meet an unnecessary requirement – but only if the requirement has not  been eliminated. Elimination of waste is a valuable cost and risk reduction tool and an unnecessary  requirement is a prime example of waste that we should be striving to eliminate. There is nothing unique  to New Space in this effort to aim for good and minimized requirements. The difference is the critical  relationship of minimized requirements to the driving objectives of low cost and fast schedules.  Remember the adage ‘Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.’  NASA/CP—2018-219887 447