The International Space Station: Applying system of systems methodology

Societal and technological advancements along with lessons learned from previous projects and space programs resulted in the creation of the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is an engineering marvel created by a collaboration of 16 International Partners (IP´s), space agencies, contractors and sub-contractors whose primary purpose is to conduct research in space for benefit of mankind. However, currently, there are several major challenges relating to the management of the ISS such as budget, time, governance, and collaboration/competition which can hamper the evolution of the ISS and which can potentially lead to the failure of the system. The ISS still primarily relies on traditional systems engineering (SE) methodology which lacks the necessary flexibility to deal with the emergent challenges of the ISS system. This paper proposes applying SoSE to the ISS which we suggest can mitigate these issues and provide a framework for future space research and exploration.