You will provide a minimum of a 5-page double-spaced (Graphics and Tables are not included in the page count) analysis of a real system which successfully or unsuccessfully applied the principles of systems engineering. This is to be developed from your personal experience and individual research in the library, internet, INCOSE website, media, corporate sources, etc. Note that:

• The analysis shall be of an actual system, and must demonstrate the successful planning or implementation of some of the systems engineering processes or the results of failure to apply these processes. Other aspects of the project you might report on include:
  • What were the social, political, economic and/or business management issues that affected technological choices and engineering decisions?
  • How did managers use the systems engineering process to account for these issues?
  • How did these issues affect engineering design / development / test decisions?
  • What were the “Lessons Learned”?
• You do not need to footnote this report, but you must provide a reference list on an additional page. Citations are required in your choice of format (such as APA). Only provide significant sources which directly contribute to the analysis. The system can be a large commercial project in any country, an international project, a civil works project or a military weapon system (no restricted information should be included), but must be documented. No development project is perfect, so a description of failures as well as successes should be included.
• For your source references, you MUST use at least one academic book and a minimum of two secondary sources. Wikipedia is NOT a source, except for very general background information. Graduate students need to have research skills, analysis and synthesis of detailed information as part of their toolkit.

Answer preview

The United States is one of the countries with extensive space travel and exploration programs (Cole, 2003). The government sets aside vast sums of money to fund their space program. Going to space is not an easy feat and comes with numerous obstacles and dangers. When everything goes according to plan, the benefits accruing from such exploration are quite immense. However, when things go haywire, the impact is also very high. Going to space is a very risky venture, evidenced by the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster that befell the United States on February 1^st, 2003.(1703 words)