[ What We Do ]
Mission and Operations Research Analysis
Improving superiority before the first shot is fired.
Mission and Operations Research Analysis equips decision-makers with the clarity and foresight required to make critical decisions in complex environments. SPA integrates advanced modeling and simulation with disciplined methods, leveraging digital engineering artifacts and intelligence to build decision-quality models for rigorous analysis across systems, missions, and campaigns.
Digital wargaming enables agencies to explore strategies in scenario-driven environments and provides actionable insights for planning, accelerating iteration, sharpening focus, and reducing reliance on lengthy alternatives. Mission and Operations Research Analysis turns concepts and data into insights, delivering impactful results across domains.
How leaders benefit
Stress-test mission strategies with advanced digital modeling and simulation.
Optimize resource allocation across campaigns to achieve strategic superiority.
Gain clarity on multi-domain interdependencies to guide critical decisions.
Reduce decision uncertainty through actionable, data-driven insights.
How we deliver impact
Stress-test strategic and tactical CONOPS
Optimize critical domain interdependencies
Quantify mission-critical investment decisions
Accelerate virtual capability experimentation
Translate theoretical concepts and technical data into actionable insights
Advancing Aviation Readiness with LVC Integration
SPA supported the first flight test of the UH-60M Digital Backbone and Mission System Flying Test Bed, validating system compatibility, power, and data integrity. This milestone confirmed a Modular Open Systems approach and adherence to the FACE (Future Airborne Capability Environment) Standard. SPA experts used SPA NSS (Naval Simulation System) and live, virtual, and constructive (LVC) simulations for mission planning, combining live flight elements with virtual scenarios to enhance preparation and ensure system readiness.
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Driving DTRA’s R&D Efforts in Advanced WMD Countermeasures
SPA assists the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in developing leading-edge technologies to counter weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in support of Combatant Commands. Providing expertise across CBRNE, counter-improvised threat, and threat network technologies, SPA supports the full mission spectrum—from detection and characterization to denial and consequence management. We drive mission success by developing advanced system concepts, exploring alternative architectures, and validating innovative components in realistic environments to ensure rigorous requirements verification and the seamless transition of critical capabilities to the warfighter.
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Identifying Gaps for Investment Decisions
Using GCAM and the ArcherEye model, SPA operations researchers developed detailed, mission-level models for Navy and Air Force weapons systems to identify capability gaps and guide budget decisions for long-range kill chains and command and control architectures. These models analyzed operations across sea, land, and air domains while accounting for the impacts of space and cyber. This work provided military leaders with clear, actionable insights to allocate resources efficiently, prioritize key investments, and sustain a strategic edge in multi-domain operations.
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Prioritizing Cybersecurity Investments with Analytics
SPA’s cyber team led a study to evaluate the effectiveness of US Navy cybersecurity investments. They identified potential threats, created a detailed virtual model of the network, and analyzed past data to predict where vulnerabilities are most likely to occur.
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Driving Strategic Decisions with Digital Wargaming and Campaign Analysis
SPA uses digital wargaming and campaign analysis to provide critical insights into current and future force structures. With their operational expertise and advanced tools like AthenaSight and SPA-developed STORM and SWIFT, SPA analysts model warfare across tactical, operational, and strategic levels, including logistics, space, cyber, electronic warfare, and whole-of-government scenarios. This approach supports key force structure and employment decisions for individual services and the Joint Force.
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Integrating Nuclear Effects into Wargames
SPA has pioneered adding explicit strategic impacts to traditionally conventional wargames, educating the conventional defense community on Conventional-Nuclear Integration issues and bringing to light the complexities that arise in this degraded environment. SPA incorporated the effects of nuclear weapons into SWIFT and STORM, government-owned tactical and operational wargame support tools to identify structure and capabilities requirements of future forces.
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Empowering Decision-Makers for Strategic Superiority
Constellation Defensive Validation
Model orbital engagement windows and debris-risk scenarios to validate satellite constellation defensive postures and replenishment rates.
Tactical Pattern Refinement
Use high-fidelity acoustic simulations and tactical wargames to refine anti-submarine warfare (ASW) search patterns in contested chokepoints.
Fail-Forward Network Resilience
Simulate large-scale network degradation during multi-domain operations to identify "fail-forward" protocols that maintain command and control.
Unified Campaign Visibility
Execute theater-level wargames that integrate C-UAS, logistics, kinetic strike, and non-kinetic effects to identify the optimal force mix for high-intensity conflict.
Technical Coordination
Provide rigorous assessment of reporting, products, and impact. Develop and manage reporting mechanisms and products that mitigate technical and programmatic communication risks.
