Session
Swifty Session 1
Location
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Abstract
Small satellites are making leaps in capability and are more often successful than even 5 years ago. However, there are many practices and approaches that are fairly new and deserve consideration for their efficacy. AFRL’s Small Satellite Portfolio (SSP) has been researching both first-of-their-kind technology demonstrations and the practices/approaches for their implementation. This paper discusses those practices and their results on the recent flight mission Recurve.
The Portfolio, somewhat uniquely, has the ability to execute flight demonstrations starting from concept and ending in operations, literally under one roof. Recurve was comprised of in-house developed and vendor supplied subsystems; in-house flight software and ground data systems; vendor supplied ground antennas; and an in-house assembly, test, and operations campaign. The team had significant influence over the implementation details and mission practices. This influence led to visibility into how decisions impacted execution. This mission execution enabled not only on-orbit experimentation, but also direct application of past lessons learned, which allowed for experimental systems engineering and project management approaches. Experimenting with in-house practices and methodologies resulted in a successful mission campaign and validated many design philosophies. One such philosophy is the Portfolio’s approach towards risk management, operating under a higher risk acceptance posture than many DoD missions. This includes a scalable scope based upon budget/schedule constraints and a higher risk tolerance with specific regards to component selection and iterative testing campaigns.
Advantages, lessons learned, and improvements to the practices employed are discussed. Further, the paper also discusses how some of those decisions led to the early end of the on-orbit mission, likely from radiation effects, after about 2 months of operations. Finally, this paper balances preliminary alterations to those practices against risk acceptance.
AFRL Recurve Mission Success, Loss, Diagnosis, and Lessons Learned
Utah State University, Logan, UT
Small satellites are making leaps in capability and are more often successful than even 5 years ago. However, there are many practices and approaches that are fairly new and deserve consideration for their efficacy. AFRL’s Small Satellite Portfolio (SSP) has been researching both first-of-their-kind technology demonstrations and the practices/approaches for their implementation. This paper discusses those practices and their results on the recent flight mission Recurve.
The Portfolio, somewhat uniquely, has the ability to execute flight demonstrations starting from concept and ending in operations, literally under one roof. Recurve was comprised of in-house developed and vendor supplied subsystems; in-house flight software and ground data systems; vendor supplied ground antennas; and an in-house assembly, test, and operations campaign. The team had significant influence over the implementation details and mission practices. This influence led to visibility into how decisions impacted execution. This mission execution enabled not only on-orbit experimentation, but also direct application of past lessons learned, which allowed for experimental systems engineering and project management approaches. Experimenting with in-house practices and methodologies resulted in a successful mission campaign and validated many design philosophies. One such philosophy is the Portfolio’s approach towards risk management, operating under a higher risk acceptance posture than many DoD missions. This includes a scalable scope based upon budget/schedule constraints and a higher risk tolerance with specific regards to component selection and iterative testing campaigns.
Advantages, lessons learned, and improvements to the practices employed are discussed. Further, the paper also discusses how some of those decisions led to the early end of the on-orbit mission, likely from radiation effects, after about 2 months of operations. Finally, this paper balances preliminary alterations to those practices against risk acceptance.
