This article describes an approach to modeling the value of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's investment options that was used to select portfolios of environmental observing systems that best satisfy NOAA's mission-critical observing requirements at target budget constraints. We describe a portfolio analysis approach based on capability-based performance measures that was developed to satisfy recent Government acquisition and planning regulations. The evaluation and selection methodology utilized a MITRE-developed optimization tool called the Portfolio Analysis Machine or PALMA. PALMA has been used at a variety of Government agencies to support selection of investment portfolios. Because of the detailed and extensive nature of the NOAA mission tree decomposition, we use a notional-and simpler-Search and Rescue mission to describe PALMA's capabilities in more detail. Finally, we provide some observations on results, including the impact on NOAA investment decisions, and lessons learned from the NOAA implementations of investment analysis and some future directions for this work.

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