Federated Space Systems’ Trade-Space 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 trade-space 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 the net present value to assess the 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. The proposed methodology reduces the threshold probability of partner collaboration for which SOS participation is economically rational by up to 18% for the most efficient designs as compared to a typical conceptual design method, thereby increasing the likelihood of successful SOS formation. The results highlight the importance of accounting for strategy dynamics when designing systems for collaboration.