neoSprockets .. the next generation of engineers and tech professionals ..

Fractionated Spacecraft

Remember how interchangeable parts revolutionized manufacturing in the early 20th century? I do. Also, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin and Lincoln was shot in a log cabin.

Well, since the 1980s the world’s smartest and handsomest scientists have been pushing to implement such an idea onto our aging satellite and spacecraft systems.

Fractionated spacecraft are all the buzz in the aerospace industry [pdf]. To oversimplify the concept for the purpose of entertainment in an otherwise dry blog entry, fractionated spacecraft are like Ocean’s 11. Instead of sending one big monolithic satellite to do the job, you send a bunch of smaller specialized components, like Matt Damon and an Asian guy who does acrobatics.

For your particular mission, you might have a Communications guy, a Sensor guy, a Data guy — even a Golden Eye guy. Your crew can snap together like Lego blocks, or can even fly independently in a tight cluster — a slick, slow-motion, sunglasses-wearing cluster. Throw in a David Holmes soundtrack and you’re set.

So what happens when the Power guy gets nabbed by the cops (hit by an asteroid)? Unlike the movie, this probably won’t be part of a planned, overly-complex unnecessary ploy to thwart the bad-guy. Well, you have a number of options. You could simply plug-in that backup redundant Power guy you sent up with your crew. You could commission a new Power guy from that DirecTV cluster orbiting nearby, renewing your damn 2-year contract. Or maybe you can take this opportunity to send up that new and improved Power guy 2.0 your customer has been talking up.

With fractionation, the spacecraft becomes upgradable and serviceable on the fly. Assuming a common bus, additional payloads are installed and repairs can be performed without rendering your former platform obsolete. There are ramp-up benefits as well. In the past, a single payload development delay could set back the entire mission for years. Now an asset can be deployed in pieces, utilizing some creative launch scheduling to minimize delay cost.

There are some natural downsides to the idea. There needs to be an agreed common bus system amunst the top satellite manufacturers. And there are certainly some technical details that need addressing, namely how to essentially build an IKEA satellite from 26,000 miles away.

Last year, DARPA announced contracts for the preliminary development phase of a fractionated spacecraft program to Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lego, Lockheed Martin, and Orbital Sciences. [pdf] What? Did you guys get a group rate or something?