Mission Assurance Versus Cost - Thinking in a Smaller Box

Details Mission Assurance Versus Cost - Thinking in a Smaller Box Mission Assurance Versus Cost - Thinking in a Smaller Box

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsa23c..01r&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SA23C-01

Computer Science

Sound

[0394] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Instruments And Techniques, [2494] Ionosphere / Instruments And Techniques, [3394] Atmospheric Processes / Instruments And Techniques

Scientific paper

The cost to launch a space craft into orbit can be a significant percentage of the cost of a mission. This cost has driven space agencies to try to assure mission success by adding significant overhead on to the processes that are used to design, built and test instruments and space craft. This drive to assure mission success creates a feedback loop - the processes drive the cost up, which makes it even more important that the mission succeed, which drive more strict processes, which drive costs up, etc. Further, the probability of a launch vehicle failure can be higher than the probability of a satellite failure. Cost is typically driven down by mass production. This can not really be accomplished with typical satellite missions, due to the cost of the mission assurance and launches. On the other hand, there have been successful mass-produced satellites constellations, such as OrbComm, GPS and Iridium. Further, with miniaturization of instrumentation, it becomes possible to launch many extremely small satellites where normally one would launch one large satellite. This method has many advantages over typical missions: (1) the design of a single small satellite can be tested and verified through a secondary payload launch to assure that the design is sound; (2) the mass production cost is significantly smaller than building a single monolithic satellite; (3) constellation missions are inherently scalable, so it is easy to descope the mission if mass/cost/schedule become problematic; (4) some global-scale science questions can be address through relatively random orbits, so each of the constellation members could be launched as secondary payloads; (5) multiple smaller, cheaper launchers could be utilized instead of a single heavy lifting launch vehicle (which serves additionally to protect against a single launch failure also); and (6) most constellation missions can have built in robustness, such that if individual satellites fail, the system as a whole can still accomplish the underlying goal. While not every mission can accomplish its science goals through the use of miniaturized instruments, there exist many science topics that can be addressed through the use of many small satellites, where the robustness is build in to the mission through the number of satellites, instead of single monolithic satellite in which the failure of the single satellite or launch vehicle ends the mission.

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