 The AoA is designed to examine a broad spectrum of potential alternatives to the mission need described in the Mission Needs Statement.The key purpose of the AoA is to identify a "solution" that will fulfill the stated requirements as optimally as possible commensurate with established cost and schedule constraints, at the lowest practicable risk.The "solution" may be a specific design or configuration but it is more than likely to be a set of design parameter values the combination of which would provide the most optimal and desirable means of fulfilling the stated requirements.