Further Reading: Mission Design

Mission design and systems engineering are where the propulsion and orbital-mechanics texts hand off to a different literature — one about process as much as physics. The sources below are Tier 1 (canonical works we are confident exist) or Tier 2 (a real, named result or resource whose exact edition/page we do not pin down here).

The core references

Wertz, Everett & Puschell, Space Mission Engineering: The New SMAD. The single most important book for this chapter, and for the whole Design Your Mission project. "SMAD" is where the delta-v-budget-as-master-constraint philosophy, the requirements process, the margin tables, and the subsystem sizing rules all live, with worked mission examples. If you read one book beyond ours on mission design, read this. Tier 1.

Larson & Wertz (eds.), Space Mission Analysis and Design (the original "SMAD"). The predecessor to The New SMAD, still widely used and often cheaper. Its process chapters — mission objectives, requirements, and the design loop of §29.1 — are classics. Tier 1.

NASA, NASA Systems Engineering Handbook (NASA/SP-2016-6105). NASA's own account of the lifecycle, the phases (Pre-Phase A through F), and the review gates (MDR/PDR/CDR and the rest) of §29.6. Free online, authoritative, and the reference for the vocabulary you will meet in any review room. Tier 1. Search the document number for the current PDF.

On systems engineering as a way of thinking

Rechtin & Maier, The Art of Systems Architecting. The best book on the judgment side of §29.5 — the heuristics of architecting a system when the problem is under-specified and the subsystems are coupled. Where SMAD gives you the numbers, Rechtin gives you the way of thinking. Tier 1.

Norman R. Augustine, Augustine's Laws. The source of this chapter's epigraph. A witty, data-grounded set of "laws" about why aerospace programs grow in cost and mass and schedule — the human and organizational face of the margins and coupling of §§29.4–29.5. Reads like humor; lands like a warning. Tier 2 — a real book; the exact wording of individual laws is widely quoted and paraphrased.

On a mission that failed at an interface

NASA, Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board report (1999). The primary account of the units-mismatch loss discussed in §29.6 — a systems-engineering failure at an unmanaged interface, not a physics error. Reading the board's findings is the most vivid possible argument for interface control and "units on every number." Tier 2 — a real, publicly released report; find it by searching the title.

Watch and play

Scott Manley, YouTube — mission-design and delta-v-budget videos. Manley's delta-v-map and mission-planning videos pair naturally with §29.3; hearing a second voice trace a mission's budget across the map reinforces the master-constraint idea. Tier 2.

Kerbal Space Program — build a mission to a target and back. The fastest way to feel §29.5: design a craft for a mission, discover it is too heavy for your launcher, and iterate the whole funnel. KSP is a mission-design spiral you can run in an evening. Tier 2 — a commercial game.

Suggested order

1. Reread §29.1 and §29.3, then skim the mission-design and delta-v-budget chapters of The New SMAD to see the professional version of the same funnel and budget.
2. Read the phases-and-reviews chapter of the NASA Systems Engineering Handbook to solidify the MDR/PDR/CDR vocabulary of §29.6.
3. Read a few of Augustine's Laws for the reason margins exist, then the Mars Climate Orbiter report for the reason interfaces are managed.
4. Open KSP (or a spreadsheet) and run your own mission's funnel end to end — it will make the chapter's coupling tangible in a way no reading can.