全球智库信息集成服务系统

• Decisionmakers in the acquisition community need assessments characterizing the value of SMA to inform a variety of space investment decisions, such as architecture development, budget decisions, requirements development, and future concept development.
• Five existing analytic methods for assessing SMA were identified in this report, and there are advantages and disadvantages to each. These methods have some shortfalls that are not unique to SMA assessments but are more severe than they are for similar assessments in other domains, for reasons including the relative newness of space as a warfighting domain, fragmentation of roles and responsibilities within the national security space community, and challenges associated with compartmentalization of data and information associated with SMA assessments.
• The shortfalls are in (1) established baseline and uncertainty bounds for inputs and assumptions needed for SMA assessments, (2) available methods for assessing social-behavioral aspects of SMA, (3) SMA assessments linking space to terrestrial warfighting operations, and (4) SMA assessments spanning multiple mission areas.

The U.S. government has taken several steps to account for the increasing likelihood that future conflicts will extend to space, including the establishment in December 2019 of the U.S. Space Force. The potential for future wars to extend to space is driving an urgent need for assessments of space mission assurance (SMA) to provide decision support. Assessments of SMA may be used as decision support for acquisition and operational decisions in the U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence community.

The research described in this report was conducted in 2018 and aims to help the national security space community enhance analytic methods for assessing SMA. The authors describe decisionmaker needs for assessments of SMA, challenges for conducting assessments, the shortfalls that may result from the challenges, and options for addressing the shortfalls.

The authors conducted semistructured interviews with decisionmakers to identify decisionmaker needs and shortfalls of assessments provided to them in the recent past. Semistructured interviews were also conducted with analysts to identify analytic methods available and to discuss challenges. Researchers examined a selection of models to better understand the capabilities of available analytic methods and their limitations. The research team also undertook its own assessments and modeling efforts to evaluate potential steps and innovations that could address SMA assessment shortfalls.

• Chapter One

  Introduction

• Chapter Two

  Decisionmaker Needs for SMA Assessments

• Chapter Three

  Existing Analytic Methods

• Chapter Four

  Shortfalls

• Chapter Five

  Ways to Address the Shortfalls

• Chapter Six

  Summary and Conclusions

• Appendix A

  Example Application of an RDM Methodology to an SMA Assessment

• Appendix B

  Sensitivity Analysis with Application to SMA Assessments

• Appendix C

  Example Application of Campaign Outcome–Guided Mission-Level Analysis to an SMA Assessment

• Appendix D

  A Perspective on Explicit and Tacit Boundaries for Information-Sharing and Examples