The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance and Old Dominion University are launching the Aptera MvS Executive Program in Mission Capability Development. Nine months. A select cohort. The first class starts in January 2027.
Aptera is our first university program on the Atlantic. USC SHIELD, ARTEMIS (University of Hawaii) and AETOS (University of Arizona) look west to the Pacific and up to space. Aptera looks east.
Looking East
The Atlantic is no longer a moat. Long-range cruise missiles, submarine-launched threats and drones have made the Eastern Seaboard a front line. Ports, shipyards, bases, power grids and population centers from Maine to Florida all sit inside a threat envelope. The drone incursions over U.S. installations in recent years make this point. The homeland is in play.
Aptera will focus its cohort on three problem sets:
- Missile defense of the Atlantic approaches and the Eastern Seaboard;
- Counter-UAS for bases, critical infrastructure and public venues; and
- The defense challenges our European allies face across the Atlantic, and what they teach us at home.
Europe is living tough real-world lessons now. Drones and missiles at scale, layered defenses under pressure, and the hard work of making sensors and shooters from many nations talk to each other. Aptera participants will study what is working on the other side of the Atlantic and what can translate to our side of the Atlantic to defend the Homeland.
ODU sits in the right place to do this program. Hampton Roads is home to the world’s largest naval base, fleet and joint commands, shipyards, and the defense industrial base. The region is the classroom.
Aptera MvS Tackles the Integration Problem
Technology is not the hard part anymore. Integration is.
We have sensors that see farther, interceptors that fly faster, and AI sorting data faster than any watch team. None of it matters if it can’t share what it knows, if leaders can’t judge how far to trust it, or if no one can fit it into a mission that works.
Aptera builds what ODU calls “decision-grade fluency.” Not turning executives into engineers. Giving them enough technical depth to know what a capability can do, where it breaks, how it connects to everything else, and when to stop and ask before acting. No buzzwords. Architecture.
How It Works
- A partnership between Old Dominion University and MDAA;
- A Curriculum spanning mission engineering, modeling and simulation, AI and machine learning, cybersecurity, data science, and policy;
- Cohort members drawn from military, government, and industry;
- Small teams taking on real, unclassified Warfighter problems with faculty and expert mentors; and
- Capstone Project findings briefed to national-level decision-makers.
Behind it sits ODU’s research enterprise: the new National Security Institute, the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center, and the Monarch Sphere AI partnership with Google Cloud.
Four Programs. One Network.
Taking a step back to look at MDAA’s overall Academic program, each individual component has its own lane.
- SHIELD (University of Southern California), running since 2021, works on space deterrence at the seam of policy and engineering. It is the model for everything that followed.
- ARTEMIS (University of Hawaiʻi) works on sensing, data fusion, and Indo-Pacific space domain awareness.
- AETOS (University of Arizona) works on near-space and terrestrial operations, and how AI and electronic warfare are changing the threat.
- APTERA (Old Dominion University) brings mission engineering and an Atlantic focus.
Different lanes. Same goal. Over time, we expect these cohorts and their Capstones to inform one another, building a community of leaders who understand how the pieces fit together, from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Golden Dome is a system of systems. It will be won or lost at the seams. These programs are built to train the people who work the seams.
Learn More
Program details and applications: odu.edu/aptera
MDAA Academic Program page: missiledefenseadvocacy.org/academics-and-innovation/odu-aptera
MDAA’s USC SHIELD Capstones: University of Southern California SHIELD – Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance
MDAA and University of Hawaii ARTEMIS I Capstones: University of Hawaii ARTEMIS – Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance