ISO 14620-1:2002 defines the safety programme and the technical safety requirements that are implemented in order to comply with the safety policy as defined in ISO 14300-2. It is intended to protect flight and ground personnel, the launch vehicle, associated payloads, ground support equipment, the general public, public and private property, and the environment from hazards associated with space systems. Launch site operations are described by ISO 14620-2.

The safety policy is applied by implementing a system safety programme, supported by risk assessment, which can be summarized as follows: hazardous characteristics (system and environmental hazards) and functions with potentially hazardous failure effects are identified and progressively evaluated by iteratively performing systematic safety analyses; the potential hazardous consequences associated with the system characteristics and functional failures are subjected to a hazard reduction sequence whereby hazards are eliminated from the system design and operations, hazards are minimized, and hazard controls are applied and verified; the risks that remain after the application of a hazard elimination and reduction process are progressively assessed and subjected to risk assessment, in order to show compliance with safety targets, support design trades, identify and rank risk contributors, support apportionment of project resources for risk reduction, assess risk reduction progress, and support the safety and project decision-making process (e.g. waiver approval, residual risk acceptance); the adequacy of the hazard and risk control measures applied are formally verified in order to support safety validation and risk acceptance; safety compliance is assessed by the project and safety approval obtained from the relevant authorities.

ISO 14620-1:2002 is applicable to all space projects where during any project phase there exists the potential for hazards to personnel or the general public, space flight systems, ground support equipment, facilities, public or private property, or the environment.

The imposition of these requirements on the project suppliers' activities requires that the customer's project product assurance and safety organization also respond to these requirements in a manner which is commensurate with the project's safety criticality.

When viewed from the perspective of a specific programme or project context, the requirements defined in ISO 14620-1:2002 should be tailored to match the genuine requirements of a particular profile and circumstances of a programme or project.