Mission Engineering: Analysis of Mission Threads with System of Systems Interdependence

Mission Engineering seeks to develop multiple Mission Threads (MT) that flexibly bring an underlying System of System (SoS) together to accomplish one or more missions. In SoS, a constituent system contributes to the capability of other systems, and different MT pose unique integration of SoS, thereby leading to distinct dependence between systems. Furthermore, in an operational environment, systems in SoS may face degradation in their capability due to an adversary action or natural causes which propagates through the SoS, impacting other systems. This paper seeks to address the question of selecting a MT when the constituent systems of SoS face a degradation in their operational capability. First this involves quantifying the interdependence between systems in SoS, and then investigating multiple MTs with common degraded conditions. We utilize System Operational Dependency Analysis method to quantify interdependence in the MTs and show presence of latent interactions in MTs because different MTs are uniquely impacted by the same underlying degradation in systems. The approach provides an empirical reasoning capability to select the most promising MT when systems in a SoS are not operating at their optimal capacity.