Over the summer, AIAA launched a Digital Thread Working Group to respond to current priorities and challenges identified by Corporate Member Chief Technology Officers during the 2025 CTO Summit. For Aaron Comis, Senior Digital Transformation Architect at The Aerospace Corporation and chair of the Digital Thread Working Group, navigating different definitions of digital thread has been a key aspect of his evolving career in public service. He arrived at The Aerospace Corporation, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC), after gaining expertise in digital engineering at NASA and the Department of War. As a result, he is fluent in multiple definitions for his line of work and ready to parse out how perspectives on digital engineering solutions impact public and private sector business cases.
“Because there is a common industrial base supporting a majority of aerospace and defense, how does the use of different definitions impact artifacts and deliverables?” – Aaron Comis
Digital thread is an ongoing goal for the aerospace engineering community and championed by many digital engineering subject-matter experts. Varying definitions of digital thread compound the complexity of this digital solution, however. At its best, Comis believes a digital thread can serve as a source of data truth, confidence, and integrity and an “authoritative source of truth” connecting different modeling tools. Still, the ability for a digital thread to serve as a durable solution is dependent on multiple factors.
Human in the Loop
Digital thread can provide a relationship-grounded mapping solution for different component models of a product. Often, team leads or staff members may each own their respective tools or measurements. Currently, developing and maintaining awareness and interoperability across these models and tool systems and software packages can create repetitive systems of manual data entry. In addition to repetitive systems being tedious, they can also create risk if someone misses a line of data entry. Alongside the requirement of manual entry and re-entry with updates to models and the respective software systems creating potential risks, the current manually focused method does not enable an increase in fluency or expertise from one tool to another, nor does it support a streamlined transferability of data across multiple tools. “No one wants to digitize disruption,” he stated, but the current system relies equally upon software and modeling functions where change and optimization may be limited.
Data Ownership
“Making sure that you’re able to have the evolution capability of your system is absolutely critical.” – Aaron Comis
The role of users in the system, whether in the loop or as data stewards, is critical to negotiate from the outset. In addition, establishing frameworks for accountability should be useful in determining how best to manage the data among current team members as well as succession planning. Having a modular open system approach (MOSA) may assist in maintaining the agility of the system as well as determining the range of customization when considering digital solutions. On average, Comis noted that individual disciplines within a single organization can use between 5 and 15 different modeling tools, which proves challenging when attempting to manually maintain configuration across multiple disciplines and domains. Varying levels of complexity require user input from the beginning in determining when an out-of-the-box solution could work. Furthermore, early user input can provide insight on broader goals for the digital thread structure, such as the creation of Digital Twins for testing and training purposes.
Value and AI
“You have to prove something out first and demonstrate the value before securing investments. In that way, it is not surprising that investment may lag innovation.” – Aaron Comis
Comis found the comparative magnitude of investment in Artificial Intelligence and Digital Thread somewhat surprising given the evolution of discussions. He sees the use of digital thread as circumstantial, with a possibility of variation in deciding whether the Digital Thread is a tool, product, or service. Given the current enthusiasm around AI, the question is whether there are ways of connecting the two approaches.
The working group aims to help bridge the business case for when and how Digital Thread can be characterized and used across professional environments. Comis noted that one of the Digital Thread values is in consistency management, while AI may bring relationship-grounded understanding and enable faster adjustments to hypothetical or future environmental variables, such as thermal variation or even use of materials. A company’s unique digital thread could then become a proprietary system for interrogation of institutional memory and previous design choices.
Comis’ white paper on Digital Transformation is planned for release by The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy (CSPS) in 2026.
Related Reading
- Digital Thread White Paper | AIAA
- Digital Twin Implementation White Paper | AIAA
- Embracing Disruption to Unlock Top Technologies for the Future of Aerospace – Aerospace America
