Assessing the Flexibility Provided by an On-orbit Infrastructure of Fractionated Spacecrafts
- Paper number
IAC-05-D3.3.01
- Author
Mrs. Charlotte Mathieu, Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), France
- Coauthor
Dr. Annalisa Weigel, Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), United States
- Year
2005
- Abstract
A traditional spacecraft design has a specially tailored bus platform, used only once to support a payload over its lifecycle. This creates large costs and risks associated with each mission, and prevents reuse of launched elements. The recently introduced concept of fractionated spacecraft makes conceivable the idea of an on-orbit infrastructure that would replace traditional monolithic platforms. Spacecraft fractionation transforms a traditional monolithic spacecraft into a network of elements: a free-flying payload is supported by an on-orbit infrastructure composed of several building blocks elements. The main supporting functions are distributed between the payload and the infrastructure modules. The latter are reusable and can be reconfigured, added or exchanged independently from the other ones. The concept of fractionated spacecraft makes a clear distinction between the value-added payload and its supporting functions; platforms become a reusable on-orbit infrastructure and are no longer designed and launched for each limited time mission. The sets of modules would form a whole network that could support single payloads as well as large constellations of payloads. Thus, spacecraft fractionation revolutionizes the idea of space-based capability and spacecraft lifetime, creating a flexible, evolvable and scaleable system-of-systems infrastructure that would enable sustainable future space utilization. This paper assesses such a fractionated spacecraft infrastructure using multi-attribute trade-space exploration. In a customer-centric perspective, this paper evaluates different geosynchronous orbit infrastructure architectures along the attributes valued by possible customers. Different customer profiles are identified according to their specific needs and concerns. The attributes taken into account are traditional ones such as performance, as well as non traditional ones such as flexibility and responsiveness. The architectures investigated define the trade-space, and correspond to different numbers of module sets, different locations, or different numbers of payloads supported by each set of modules. The trade-space exploration enables the assessment of those different architectures and analysis of sensitivity to both design parameters and customer needs. Various demand scenarios and levels of available on-orbit servicing are defined. For each of those, this paper identifies the best fractionated infrastructure architectures for each type of customer, and it demonstrates the advantages of such an infrastructure. Finally, this paper introduces and discusses the significant impact on all the aerospace industry players resulting from the development of such a fractionated infrastructure.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-05-D3.3.01.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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