Achieving Low-Cost, High-Reliability Payload Services Through a Collegiate Approach Using Standardized Satellite Bus Architectures

Achieving Low-Cost, High-Reliability Payload Services Through a Collegiate Approach Using Standardized Satellite Bus Architectures

Utah State University, Logan, UT

The space community is rapidly expanding, especially in the Small Sat sector. The incremental implementation of more compact technology and the decline of launch costs lowers the barrier to entry into space, allowing for new actors to expand into the market. Two important players in this incremental process are collegiate satellite programs and commercial satellite-as-a-service (SataaS) providers. Collegiate satellite programs have previously occupied the low-cost, low-reliability market. These are often in a one-time collaboration with a professor or company, always resulting in the design of a unique bus derived by mission-specific stakeholder needs. In contrast with university programs, current commercial SataaS providers occupy the medium/high-cost, high-reliability market. This reliability is accomplished by developing standardized satellite bus systems and implementing recurrent engineering. It would be highly desirable for a player to create a low-cost solution without sacrificing the high reliability that common industry entities provide. Such a solution would tremendously increase access to space for actors within industry, academia, and government.

This paper introduces the concept of a collegiate SataaS program, wherein student satellite teams develop a standardized bus to host a variety of customer payloads across separate missions. The paper features this type of program’s life cycle, benefits, and trade-offs, as well as an example in Purdue Space Program’s Boiler Bus program. These collegiate SataaS programs create and exclusively occupy a low-cost, semi-high-reliability market space by combining the inherent low cost of collegiate programs with the high reliability and quick development times brought about by standardization seen in industry. If widely adapted, this type of program could have substantial benefits for the space industry, lowering the barrier to entry for new players and allowing for further proliferation of scientific and industry driven progress.