By Dave Ahearn
DARPA last week awarded Boeing [BA], Lockheed Martin [LMT], Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Orbital Sciences [ORB] multi-million-dollar contracts to design and build what is essentially one satellite divided into multiple parts, linked wirelessly.
Those contracts are for the first, one-year phase of a four-phase effort.
Why split up what ordinarily would be a single satellite into several separate parts?
Because, if one of those parts is damaged deliberately by an anti-satellite weapon or accidentally by space debris, most of the satellite survives and continues operating. “It’s survivability,” an industry source said.
China last year proved it can obliterate any satellite it wishes by using a ground-based interceptor missile to demolish one of its own aging weather satellites, an act that created a vast cloud of lethal space debris moving at 17,500 miles an hour.
As well, China used a ground-based laser to temporarily disable a U.S. military satellite.
Military analysts predict that if China invades Taiwan, as it has vowed to do if Taiwan doesn’t submit to rule by Beijing, the People’s Liberation Army might annihilate U.S. military satellites to harm U.S. armed forces communications and intelligence.
Also, it’s cheaper to update when only one mini-satellite must be replaced, instead of an entire unified satellite. Also, all of the component satellites in the mini- constellation don’t have to be developed at the same time, but can be developed in a series.
These are the details on the contracts, the members of the competing teams, and the dollar amounts for each company:
- Boeing, teamed with L-3 Communications [LLL], Millennium Space Systems, Octant Technologies, and SAIC ($12.8 million).
- Lockheed Martin, teamed with Aurora Flight Sciences, Colbaugh & Heinsheimer Consulting, and Vanderbilt University ($5.7 million).
- Northrop Grumman, teamed with ATK [ATK], Aurora Flight Sciences, Juniper Networks, L-3, BAE Systems, Cornell University, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Southern California, and University of Virginia ($6.1 million).
- Orbital Sciences, teamed with IBM [IBM], Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology, SpaceDev, and Aurora ($13.6 million).
Each of the component satellites could contribute a unique capability to the rest of the network, such as computing, ground communications, or payload functionality.
The ultimate goal of the program is to launch a fractionated spacecraft system and demonstrate it in orbit in approximately four years.
DARPA F6 Program Manager Owen Brown explains, “We see many benefits to fractionation. Fractionation provides the flexibility to launch individual payloads when they are ready so that an otherwise complex, multi-payload program isn’t delayed. It diversifies risk during launch by not putting all of our eggs into one basket, greatly improves robustness to attack, and provides the capability to rapidly replace a failed component without needing complex in-orbit servicing.
“And we have the potential to take advantage of Moore’s law by frequently upgrading on-orbit computing resources using relatively small modules, as opposed to waiting decades until we replace the entire spacecraft.”
During the first phase, contractors will:
- Develop key technologies to enable the fractionated approach, including robust networking, reliable wireless communications, fault-tolerant distributed computing, wireless power transfer, and autonomous cluster navigation;
- Select a space system mission of value to a national security space stakeholder and develop a system design to accomplish that mission;
- Develop an innovative analytical approach using econometric tools that determine the risk-adjusted cost and value of a both a fractionated space system and a monolithic program of record with equivalent capability; and
- Develop an evolved hardware-in-the-loop test-bed to emulate the designed fractionated spacecraft using a cluster of networked computers.
“This is an incredibly exciting program that could radically change the way we do business in space,” Brown said. “The world of tomorrow will be one of uncertainty. To address this uncertainty, F6 will develop an approach that provides flexibility and reduced risk for a space system’s entire lifecycle.”