Integrating a truly digital thread – to promote transparency not only across product lifecycles but also between the contractor and customer – is critical to developing the next element of homeland defense. Photo: Courtesy of Lockheed Martin
When every second counts to protect the nation, and emerging threats are evolving at a rapid pace, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) recognized a need for a new system to protect the American people and the homeland against threats. To outpace threat advancements and increase the nation’s efficiency in defeating threats, the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) will be an all-new interceptor fielded as a part of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. But, as the name suggests, it needs to truly be a next-generation interceptor – utilizing 21st-century innovations and tools to quickly deliver an affordable, reliable, and never-fail missile defense system poised to deliver for warfighters’ needs now, and in the future.
“Designing and developing the most advanced hit-to-kill technology requires an approach that not only aligns with the customers’ digital engineering strategy to provide enhanced security and greater affordability but also needs to be completely integrated,” said Janica Cheney, director of Capability Implementation Management for Lockheed Martin. “This level of interconnectivity – not only the systems themselves but also the integration with the MDA customer – will transform the way we develop this kind of system and create never-before-seen levels of transparency for all stakeholders.”
To deliver this transparency and the advanced capabilities built into the system to maintain flexibility, a digital, model-based engineering approach is critical. With an interdisciplinary backbone made up of specific data elements across the entire product lifecycle, every element will be anchored in a common model to provide a system-level view. Then, as the team makes modifications, both cost and time implications can be better understood with a concurrent digital design.
This is a much-needed evolution to historical development programs across the defense portfolio because this integrated digital thread will allow for increased collaboration and transparency for the government customer to evaluate strategic engineering trade-offs, keep the program on plan while also accelerating the schedule. This also allows for a more seamless transition as work moves through design, production and sustainment.
Lockheed Martin has already made significant progress in establishing a fully integrated, model-based digital environment – including the right software, infrastructure and digitally-enabled collaboration tools – to execute digital engineering. This capability will allow the team to deliver a minimal viable product much earlier and realize millions of dollars in savings as compared to other development programs. Being able to evaluate each variable will help customers make data-driven decisions about impacts to the systems and quickly move from design to production with other advancements like augmented reality, artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing.
One illustrative example of applying digital engineering is the creation of a digital twin as a key program asset. Today, mission simulations help provide valuable information to ensure mission success, but with the evolution of digital twin programs like NGI, the team will have the added advantage of having digital surrogates of vendor hardware components. This will reduce risk for actual physical hardware testing – enabling another way to e-create products.
“With the use of a digital twin, the customer will be able to conduct early-and-often testing throughout the development process to ensure the product is viable,” said Cheney. “This ‘fly-before-you-buy’ has already seen success in other military domains and we can leverage ‘e-fly-before-you-buy’ on NGI.”
As the program moves from a prototype to an established product, this digital twin will provide added benefit at each stage of the product life cycle. For example, once there is a unique digital twin for each as-built missile, this digital ecosystem with advanced artificial intelligence can provide prognostic and prescriptive maintenance insights for the entire NGI fleet. This situational awareness for the customer can help maximize efficiencies during the operations and sustainment duration of the program.
A model-based system engineering approach also significantly influences the software development approach for NGI. Today, software now defines the bulk of mission-critical capabilities as compared to historical missions and, in many cases, it delivers the decisive advantage for our customers. Through a focused approach on DevSecOps, the development teams can also ensure the program meets Cyber Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) and the cyber resiliency critical for homeland defense. This agile approach to software development will also allow for continuous mission upgrades once in the operations and sustainment stage of the product lifecycle. Lockheed Martin’s company-wide Software Factory is the standard way the company develops next-gen software. The team is made up of subject matter experts who are at the forefront of shaping the industry-wide standard for DevSecOps to enable faster development and agile responsiveness. Based on the factory’s development cycle, the team will have at least 25% faster program start-up time – with the ability to build software for NGI from day one.
By taking a strategic approach to mission-driven transformation, and embracing key technologies like digital engineering, DevSecOps, and modular, open-systems architecture, contractors can help meet the needs of the MDA to have enhanced data collection and analysis supporting the strategic and tactical deployment of this critical system. The digital engineering foundation will also lead to even greater adoption of other smart tools and emerging technologies to deliver NGI more affordably and faster than any other missile defense system.
The views expressed are those of Lockheed Martin and do not constitute an endorsement by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).
