CHANGING THE PARADIGM: A NEW APPROACH TO SATELLITE DESIGN

摘要

From the smallest nanosats, to the largest communication satellites, all share a common path to launch that involvesspecification, procurement of subsystems, integration, test, rework/redesign, retest, and launch. The process datesback to the earliest days of launching hardware into space. With rising costs and increased focus on reducing risk,opportunities to adapt today's satellite designs to tomorrow's applications are dismissed for reasons of deviatingfrom heritage, introducing low TRL components, and creating increased complexity. Efforts to reduce cost havefocused on shortening schedules, relaxing parts standards, and either reducing or eliminating testing. For many thephrase "faster better cheaper" captures this concept. Costs for satellites are rising disproportionally, and unlikecommercial products like phones, computers, and automobiles where tomorrow's products build on yesterday'sefforts, the mature space organizations around the world – including commercial and government – are frozen in thefear of advancing technology, relying heavily on process consistency as the pathway to success, and this is furtherconstricting opportunities to evolve and improve. This paper discusses the small spacecraft development programunderway at LASP at the University of Colorado at Boulder using an evolved design/test/build paradigm that offersflexibility, lower cost, but maintains quality and reliability.