Yes, they need engineers and designers on that report. They need them to answer questions like "What is needed to build a system like this?", "What do we already have that we can build on top of?", and several rounds of "How about this instead?". You need to pay the engineers. Sometimes, they need to run some models or simulations. They don't, however, need to build satellites or receivers for them, nor build new computers to run models on. Their purpose is to come up with some possible designs for a system and expected costs in time and money to build them. It's mostly thinking of designs and writing about them. Their remit is not to build prototypes; their remit is to write about possibilities. At the end, their product will be a large set of writing, hopefully including useful answers to all those questions. Or in other words, a big report.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
