When modeling a mission thread from sensor to shooter, data flows through multiple systems across multiple services in a manner that exposes potential blind spots and interface gaps at critical handoff points. A legacy platform acquisition approach will never reveal these pitfalls until the capability is already fielded, leaving the warfighter at risk. A mission-thread approach focuses on finding the seams and identifying where one contractor’s output does not effectively interoperate with another’s input. In this way, digital engineering exposes the multi-domain dependencies that may compromise the effectiveness of any single-platform optimization effort.

The Air Force and Space Force have been pursuing digitized mission threads for years. The Space Systems Integration Office has been working to model contested-space scenarios that integrate Space Force systems across multiple PEOs with end-to-end missile defense capabilities and joint-service shooters into a common analytical picture. A successfully implemented mission-thread approach will ensure any interoperability failures will be exposed and resolved before they become operational failures that put the warfighter at risk.

Three things must change quickly if digital engineering is to truly accelerate acquisition at scale.

First, acquisition structures must accommodate iteration made possible through digital engineering. The ability to modify a requirement for 18 months into a program without triggering a catastrophic change-order is a prerequisite for successful implementation of digital engineering. The should-statement culture of ACAT I programs must likewise evolve to accommodate the ambiguity that digital engineering and physics-based modeling creates and resolves.

Second, industry must be brought in before the RFP is published. The government must initiate a conversation about how a program will use digital engineering, what digital infrastructure the government will invest in, what interoperability standards will apply and how models will integrate into authoritative data environments. These critical conversations need to happen in the concept phase, before requirements are locked in and industry invests in incompatible approaches. The programs that have successfully leveraged digital engineering demonstrate the effectiveness of engaging industry partners early in the acquisition process.

Third, the macro architecture must be defined with multiple cloud environments and interoperability across them, including in federated systems. The government must define that architecture with genuine industry input so that every program is not building its own digital infrastructure from scratch, and so that the models industry delivers can interoperate across the enterprise.

“The next decisive advantage will not come from a single platform. It will come from how fast the United States can design, integrate, and adapt its force.”

Digital engineering is the engine of that advantage. If it is treated as a back-office function, it will only deliver incremental gains, if any at all. But treated as an acquisition weapon system embedded in a public-private partnership, built on shared infrastructure and tied to mission outcomes, digital engineering will accelerate acquisition timelines, expand options and outpace adversaries before conflict ever begins.

The choice is clear. We must revitalize our acquisition process to take advantage of the dynamic responsiveness and accelerated concept to capability timelines that digital engineering creates.

The safety of our warfighters, and the U.S. interests they’re defending at home and abroad, depend on it.

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Shawn Purvis is President and CEO of Sabel Systems. Kim Crider is a Founding Partner at Elara Nova and a retired Major General who served as the first Chief Technology and Innovation Officer of the U.S. Space Force. Dr. Claire Leon is a Partner at Elara Nova and former member of the Senior Executive Service, having served as Director of the Space Systems Integration Office at Space Systems Command.

Digital engineering integrates digital models and underlying data throughout a weapon system’s development and sustainment life cycle. This approach is now embedded in policy from DoDI 5000.97 to Department of War guidance. Policy, however, does not deliver capability. Execution does.

Digital engineering will only accelerate acquisition when it replaces legacy processes, enforces data interoperability and is tied directly to mission outcomes. If digital engineering continues to be an overlay on top of legacy acquisition processes, it risks becoming a digitized version of the same old bottlenecks.

Maximizing digital engineering’s potential for shortening acquisition timelines, developing end-to-end capabilities and providing the warfighter with critical mission capabilities, demands we treat digital engineering as an acquisition weapon system itself.

Where It Works

The T-7A Red Hawk is perhaps the clearest proof of concept for digital engineering’s potential. As the first Air Force aircraft designed, built and tested using a fully established digital engineering model from day one, it went from contract award to first flight in 36 months. The integration of digital engineering from its start improved decision quality early in the development and testing process, enabling program leadership to see how design choices may impact capability in near real time before bending metal and therefore reducing engineering change order costs. Most importantly, this approach accelerated the concept to capability timeline for the T-7A Red Hawk by five to 10 years.

Another example is the Army’s XM-30 program to replace the M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which employed a digital engineering approach through Milestone B. This approach allowed program leadership to immediately see whether incoming designs were breaching threshold requirements and created an opportunity for two new OEM competitors to enter the market while the customer was still evolving its requirements. What resulted was an evaluation and decision process that was completed in roughly a week, when it otherwise would have taken many man-hours and many months to accomplish.

Meanwhile, the Space Force has taken the appropriate organizational steps to maximize the benefits of digital engineering as the U.S. military’s first fully digital service. The Space Warfighting Analysis Center has been modeling end-to-end mission threads for years, and the Operational Test and Training Infrastructure is now attempting to create a federated, shared data environment that cuts across all mission areas. Since the service’s founding in 2019, every PEO has initiated digital engineering projects to support acquisition, including digital RFPs, by leveraging high performance compute environments and requiring the delivery of digital models and simulations from their contractors. A representative example is the U.S. Space Force’s Spacestation program, initiated in 2021, which now supports more than 103 programs across the Space Force and Space Development Agency through a federated environment for requirements management and digital engineering execution at scale, integrating over 80 commercial and government-owned applications.

These accomplishments demonstrate how digital engineering can be effectively employed to counter a rising adversary. But proof of concept is not the same as proof of process. In the next article, we examine exactly where digital engineering breaks down when layered on top of legacy acquisition structures.