Crosslink - Space-Library

Engineering and Integrating
the Ballistic Missile Defense System
Since the early 1980s, The Aerospace Corporation has helped
develop different elements of what is now being integrated as the
nation’s Ballistic Missile Defense System. More recently, Aerospace
has been leading a research team supporting systems engineering
for this complex system.
David S. Eccles
Today, for the first time, the United
States has in its arsenal a system capable
of defending against a limited ballistic
missile attack. The system is complex, and
consists of many components or elements, as
well as an extensive infrastructure that ties the
far-flung pieces together. Some have compared
the effort to build this system with earlier U.S.
efforts to construct the first atomic weapon or
land a man on the moon. While such comparisons
are perhaps overdrawn, it is true that no
such system existed before President George
W. Bush directed the partial deployment of a
Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) by
2004.
At the time, the United States possessed a
set of autonomous weapon and sensor systems,
each with its own set of requirements and
funding, and each being acquired independently
by different branches of the armed services.
But there was no integrating framework
to bring the various elements together. Still, an
extensive legacy of research and development
to explore the feasibility of building such a
defense system had begun during the Reagan
administration, so this new effort was not
starting from scratch. In 1983, the Strategic
Defense Initiative Office (SDIO) was formed,
and had begun to assemble existing capabilities
and to develop ways of flight testing many
of these elements.
In 2002, the various missile defense efforts
were assembled under the newly formed Missile
Defense Agency (MDA). This included
the Army’s ground-based missile defense
and Theater High-Altitude Area Defense
programs, the Navy’s Aegis ballistic missile
defense program, and the Air Force’s Space
Tracking and Surveillance System and Airborne
Laser program. The Army’s Patriot
program was also brought under the MDA for
program management and integration.
The Systems Engineering
Challenge
The MDA was directed to deploy an initial
capability to defend against ballistic missile
threats to the homeland, deployed forces, allies,
and friends. Aerospace personnel had been
assigned to assist the agency as it faced the
formidable task of integrating and delivering
a system capable of responding to real threats,
and perhaps even more importantly, of adapting
to evolving threats.
The basic premise of integration for the
BMDS is the idea of a layered defense, one in
which the various components of the system
whittle away at an incoming raid. Ballistic
missiles have a boost, midcourse, and terminal
phase, so defensive capabilities that address
these phases can be combined to produce a
much more effective total system than one in
which the various components stand alone.
The system would come to be defined by an
approach of capabilities-based acquisition,
spiral development, two-year delivery blocks,
knowledge points, and an MDA dedicated
testing infrastructure. Aerospace led a team of
laboratory experts that assisted in defining this
approach for integrating the BMDS.
Competition among organizations for
funding, talent, roles, and responsibilities developed
as the various program offices and elements
were integrated into the newly formed
MDA. Each of these offices and elements
faced their own technical and programmatic
challenges. Each had a unique culture and
view of how its mission should be executed,
and each faced political, technical, and programmatic
constraints. Each program office
had stakeholders with equities to be defended,
and each was used to working autonomously,
pursuing a clearly defined mission.
BMDO (Ballistic Missile Defense Organization)
had largely been a research and
Crosslink Spring 2008 • 20