Modelling IPPD for an interdisciplinary planetary defense project

Media attention on space hazards, especially potential extinction level events caused by Near Earth Objects (NEOs), have demonstrated a capacity by the general public to accept the reality of threats from NEOs. While events such as the Chelyabinsk incident temporarily grab international attention, they fail to effectively galvanize the public and policy makers to action. Numerous potential solutions have already been proposed and some concepts are even being tested. However, many of these potential solutions are incredibly expensive, require very early hazard detection, or are politically unpalatable. These are just few elements of the larger problem of planetary defense. To address these challenges, the Roadmap for EArth Defense Initiatives (READI) Team Project developed concepts in multiple areas of focus from global collaboration and education to detection and deflection engineering problems by analyzing the current state of planetary defense concepts. The project expanded ideas into less discussed realms and contributed to the overall discussion with realistic and implementable solutions for short warning time threats. The READI Team Project is highly international, interdisciplinary, and intercultural given a large number of members participated from around the world and from numerous academic backgrounds. The project was undertaken as part of a highly intensive, nine week space studies program. This meant that, as well as tackling one of humanity’s greatest problems, there were substantial time constraints and the process of managing this project was very challenging. This paper focuses on how this interdisciplinary project was successfully accomplished using the Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD) as a systems engineering approach. We show how the team analyzed each of the elements of planetary defense to cover a wide range of requirements, and how the IPPD method allowed us to generate and propose realistic and feasible solutions to cosmic threats. We also provide recommendations for managing such complex project in a short time given challenging conditions, resulting in a collaborative effort to achieve successful technical results through effective management of the project.