Federated Space Systems Tradespace Exploration for Strategic Robustness

Abstract

Motivated by the growth of the commercial space economy and renewed focus on the disaggregation of military space systems, this work develops a method for conceptual design of federated satellite systems as a collaborative system-of-systems (SoS). Objectives seek to improve the likelihood of successful SoS formation and pursue constituent system utility robustness. The proposed metaheuristic optimization tradespace exploration method accounts for technical and economic design variables and multi-decision maker strategy dynamics. Constituent system designs are ranked on their simulated net present value. A game-theoretic measure of risk dominance is used in concert with net present value to assess robustness and utility of candidate SoS designs. The method is validated with a notional application case that assesses potential collaboration between Earth observing and telecommunications systems. Results demonstrate a fundamental trade between system efficiency and robustness and highlight the importance of accounting for strategy dynamics when designing systems for collaboration.