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Overview

Modern ground systems are evolving. The last several years has seen a significant expansion of commercial services across all aspects of satellite operations from launch and mission operations to data downlink and mission data processing, and end-user delivery. The changing ground systems landscape is driven by disruptive and non-disruptive evolutionary and revolutionary changes in both on-orbit capabilities and on-ground solutions. Traditional approaches where ground systems consist of a small number of stovepiped solutions supporting a single mission or constellation are being succeeded by enterprise systems that can support multiple missions comprised of a heterogeneous portfolio of disaggregated platforms developed and flown by a mix of government, federal partner, and commercial providers.  

These changes provide great opportunity and challenges for government systems’ owners to leverage the rapid pace of innovation that industry enables for both flight and ground system acquisition. Transitioning from highly specified front-end loaded requirements-driven development of custom solutions built and operated by the government to a needs-based service integration approach with significant commercial operator involvement provides greater agility and expandability, but assumes additional acquisition risk and requires a new set of acquisition skills capable of balancing priorities across a portfolio of capabilities and an ability to react to rapidly emerging threats and opportunities.     

As part of digital transformation, digital engineering (DE) offers the prospect of applying new technologies to provide discipline to what could become a chaotic future. As an integrated digital approach that uses authoritative sources of truth (ASOT) data and models as a continuum across practices to support lifecycle activities from concept through disposal, DE provides methods and tools to address increasing system and enterprise complexity, the increasing need for speed and agility in engineering processes, and the increasing need for efficiency and effectiveness in engineering solutions. For ground systems particularly, DE enables enterprise portfolio knowledge management, accelerating fact-based decision-making across the system lifecycle, and providing the flexibility to adapt to new service capabilities or changes in mission objectives. Integrating cost models into the DE environment supports accelerated, data-informed acquisition decision-making at any point in the lifecycle by leveraging the ASOTs and models with which they coexist.  

This tutorial will provide a high-level overview of Aerospace’s priorities of digital transformation: capability transformation, data and software operations, AI integration, and mission IT infrastructure. We will then do a deep dive into DE to include what it is, how it can be used, and what benefits can be expected in the space enterprise. The overview will be followed by a discussion about how to implement DE into acquisition lifecycle management processes including the use of descriptive models to communicate system definition characteristics such as requirements, verification, and validation (V&V) activities, architecture, interfaces, and Concept of Operations (ConOps). A discussion of cost analysis support to an acquisition lifecycle management process in a digital engineering environment will illustrate the benefits and importance of cross-mission costs in portfolio management, and an interactive discussion of the current implementation state of DE among contractors will lend to understanding how DE may streamline estimating practices and reporting requirements to result in oversight efficiency. Finally, we will review the potential of DE at the Enterprise level to coordinate and balance priorities across a portfolio of programs that depend on common capabilities to meet their mission unique goals. 

Participants who take this course will gain a more comprehensive understanding of the core principles of digital transformation and nature of DE and will be better prepared for the massive and inevitable digital revolution that is underway across the community. 

Biographies

Fredda Lerner As a systems of systems (SoS) engineer, Ms. Lerner is focused on systems development, engineering, integration, and lifecycle management in the context of and used for digital engineering (DE). Ms. Lerner has long been a DE practitioner and evangelist: 7 years ago, she was an integral part of the team that simulated one of the first successful DE ecosystems that interconnected disparate authoritative source of truth (ASOT) data sources through models at a US government agency. Ms. Lerner supports, develops, leads, and enables US Department of When completed, submit to gsaw@aero.org Revised 10/12/21 GSAW Tutorial Proposal GSAW Use Only: T-001 Defense, Intelligence Agencies, and other federal agencies to include NASA and NOAA, to cost effectively and efficiently develop, plan, implement, and transition their systems into the DE paradigm. Ms. Lerner received a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech. In the 40+ years since then, Ms. Lerner has held mechanical, manufacturing, systems engineering, and program management positions of increasing authority and scope for leading private sector corporations, most of which were in support of US government programs. Recently, Ms. Lerner was a chapter co-author of Emerging Trends in Systems Engineering Leadership, published in 2022.

Dr. Scott Schnee  has led and supported a wide range of space and ground architecture trade studies over the last decade, bringing together teams to assess performance, estimate lifecycle cost, and set requirements. He primarily supports NOAA/NESDIS and NASA/GSFC with occasional support to other agencies. Dr. Schnee’s current efforts are primarily focused on the definition and development of the ground enterprise for NOAA’s Space Weather Next program. Dr. Schnee holds a Ph.D. and Masters in Astronomy from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts in Astrophysics from Columbia University.

Mary Covert has been developing unique, customized cost models for myriad estimating purposes and milestones for over 20 years. Known as “the estimator of odd things”, her area of expertise is cost estimating challenges that require specialized analyses. She has developed custom ground cost models for NOAA/NESDIS, USGS Landsat, Intelligence Agencies, NSF, NASA, and others, ranging from iROMs and ICEs for programs, to architectural trade studies at the enterprise level. Ms. Covert holds a triple major Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Miami, and a Master’s Degree in Economic Geography from Florida Atlantic University.

Rachel Trevenna has led key elements of The Aerospace Corporation’s digital transformation as well as support several government entities in their own digital transformation. She is leading a set of teams to develop digital engineering environment pathfinders and prototypes for Aerospace and government customers. She is also leading the development of data management processes and guidance that will be utilized and implemented in Aerospace and government data management platforms. Ms. Trevenna holds a Bachelor of Science in aerospace engineering and a master’s degree in systems engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Description of Intended Audience and Recommended Prerequisites

What can Attendees Expect to Learn