Mission Assurance Baseline Matrix: Aerospace Provides a New Way to Rethink Risk

August 02, 2024

An increasingly dynamic environment is driving changes in the risk posture across the industry. As a result, Aerospace is shaping the future by developing new strategic approaches to balance risk with mission needs across the space domain. Aerospace’s Mission Assurance Baseline (MAB) matrix provides a framework for tailoring mission assurance that leverages industry crowdsourcing to advance new, dynamic approaches to risk management while delivering on Enterprise Mission Success.

“Aerospace has a depth of knowledge that makes us unlike just about any other entity across the enterprise,” said Barbara Braun, Assistant General Manager of the Agile Acquisitions Division at Aerospace. “Increasingly, we are able to help not only our government customers, but also our commercial contractor partners by providing the expertise they need for mission success – and the MAB matrix will help make that happen.”

The Mission Assurance Baseline (MAB) matrix provides a framework for tailoring mission assurance that leverages industry crowdsourcing to advance new, dynamic approaches to risk management while delivering on Enterprise Mission Success. Visit the MAB site to learn more.

Responding to Change

By creating resources like the MAB matrix, Aerospace hopes to enable broader enterprise collaboration to address the needs of an industry changing faster than ever before. While this matrix provides more than 4,000 data points to ensure mission success for a spacecraft, it is also flexible enough to allow users to focus their approach.

“This new format will make mission assurance more accessible, especially for programs that are looking to tailor their efforts. These programs can now look, in an outline format, at Aerospace’s baseline at a high level and then dive down deeper,” said Braun.

The MAB is a comprehensive toolkit that Aerospace has been using for years. The MAB matrix is an adaptation of that toolkit designed to better serve evolving customer needs and the broader space community. Like the Space Attack Research and Tactic Analysis (SPARTA), the MAB matrix will soon be publicly available, empowering both external companies and Aerospace employees to more easily access the resource.

“We pay attention to the changing mission assurance landscape and develop tools like the MAB matrix to help the whole enterprise adapt to the changing times,” said Braun.

Cultivating Collaboration

With resources like the MAB matrix, Aerospace can enable broader enterprise collaboration to address the needs of an increasingly dynamic space industry.

The MAB matrix will allow users to focus mission assurance efforts in specific areas rather than across the entire breadth of possible tasks, some of which may not be necessary or desired. The matrix will also gather user feedback and lessons learned from across the industry, which will be used to increase collaboration and knowledge sharing.

“We have to really be in front of the enterprise leading agencies and our customers through this collaboration; the matrix does an excellent job of showing folks what we have learned while allowing everybody to contribute and benefit from the experience of others,” said Braun.

The adaptive mission assurance that Aerospace affords customers is key to the success of the entire space enterprise and the MAB matrix provides the framework for collaborative knowledge sharing and problem-solving.

“We are a servant of the enterprise with a lot of knowledge gained from working with so many customers,” said Braun. “It’s time we put this out there for everybody to use, which will benefit our ultimate goal of securing a space enterprise that serves our national interests.”