^ nasa cost and schedule symposium 2021 april 28 , 2021
TRANSCRIPT
Progress and Challenges with Interplanetary Small
Satellite Missions
^ NASA Cost and Schedule Symposium 2021
April 28th, 2021
Michael Saing, TeamX Lead Cost Engineer, Deputy Systems Engineer
Alex Austin, TeamXc Lead Engineer
Disclaimer - The cost information contained in this document is of a budgetary and planning nature and is
intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute a commitment on the part of JPL and/or Caltech.
© 2021 Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology
The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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Agenda
• Motivation and Objective
• History and Background of NASA’s Small Sat Mission
• NASA’s Interplanetary Mission
• Past, Present and Future
• Challenges:– Technology
– Implementation
– Operations
– Costs
– Access to Space
• Comparisons and findings– Show some funding/cost growth
• How NASA can help to address challenges and keep cost from growing, or provide
provide sufficient
• Summary
• References
• Caveats
• Closing
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Motivation and Objective
• Informational presentation on small sat
interplanetary mission challenges
• Understand what’s going on in today’s
cost and schedule related to these
upcoming missions
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NASA Cubesat Small Sat Fleet
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~20 Interplanetary missions
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What do you mean by “Interplanetary”
• Interplanetary means traveling between planets. And focus area for
interplanetary is between sun and asteroid belt
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*Interplanetary
Space*
Deep Space
Interstellar Space and beyond
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What is a CubeSat? Small Sat?
• CubeSat = nanosatellite in a form of a cube, with each “U” measuring 10cm x 10cm x 10cm and weighs ~1.33kg (weight by
ROT)
• The “U” cube are stackable
• SmallSat mass ranging from 15 kg to ~350 kg (Standard definitions varies depending on who you ask)
• Common form factors are: 1U, 3U, 6U’s. Future planetary missions planned with 12U and MicroSat
• By Definition:
• Mini-satellite, 100-180 kilograms
• Microsatellite, 10-100 kilograms
• Nanosatellite, 1-10 kilograms
• Picosatellite, 0.01-1 kilograms
• Femtosatellite, 0.001-0.01 kilograms
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Cygnss, Microsats, 28.9 kg each
PhoneSat (1U), ~1 kg INSPIRE (3U), ~5 kg
TechEdSat 8
(1x6U), ~8 kg
RainCube (6U), 13.5kg
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The Rise of SmallSats
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• SmallSats, including
CubeSats, can range in mass
from 1 kg to ~300 kg
• Customers include
government, industry, and
academia – many successful
missions
• Growth has principally been
driven by:
• Standardization of launch
opportunities
• Miniaturization of digital
electronics due to Moore’s
Law
CYGNSS, a constellation of 8
SmallSats in Earth orbit
https://sciencesprings.wordpress.com/tag/nasa-cygnss/
MarCO, the first interplanetary
CubeSats
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/marcos-mars-and-earth/
ASTERIA, an exoplanet hunting CubeSat
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cubesat/missions/asteria.php
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Significant Drivers in Interplanetary Missions
• As a spacecraft moves further away from Earth, it gets more challenging
– Larger solar distances and Earth distances driver the telecom and power
subsystems
– Large delta-V’s drive the propulsion subsystem
– Long communication times drives the operations scenario
• Technical Feasibility: “Dead European Problems”*
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https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-
iiot/article/21128644/making-miniaturization-
manageable https://www.wiley.com/en-
us/Fundamentals+of+Physics+Extend
ed%2C+10th+Edition-p-
9781118230725
“Understanding the limitations of the classical laws of physics, worked out by Europeans, long since dead, are
fundamental to successful SmallSat Concept Development” – Alfred Nash, TeamX Lead Engineer
While modern physics has
enabled SmallSats through the
miniaturization of digital
electronics…
Classical physics still enforces constraints
on SmallSat technical capabilities
*Austin A., Nash, A., “Fundamental Problems in SmallSat Concept Development”, IEEE 2021 Conference
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Interplanetary SmallSats: Unique Challenges
•Interplanetary SmallSats have unique challenges in many
areas:
–Technology
–Implementation
–Operations
–Access to Space
-Costs
•Tackling these challenges can be a significant driver on
mission cost
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Challenges - Technology
•Interplanetary missions are driven technically by
power, telecommunications, and propulsion.
•The required capabilities in these areas far
surpasses what is needed for missions in Earth
orbit, which means that additional technology
development is required.
•Development of this new technology can be a
significant cost driver on the mission, and makes
estimating the costs of interplanetary small
satellite missions particularly challenging.
•Complex and state of the art instrument
technologies are often over seen and
underestimated (which are typical cost drivers for
small sat mission cost cap)
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Cost vs Technology Development and Maturation
Typical trend
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Technology Readiness Level
(TRL)
Cost, $
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Challenges Implementation-
-Implementing interplanetary missions is complex due to their
unique requirements.
-Most small satellite vendors do not currently have
experience in this area, so additional support is often
needed.
-This can especially drive costs for program management,
systems engineering and systems integration, which might
not scale down much with the size of the mission.
–Often times, expert support is needed from experienced
individuals
-Lots of small space start-up companies, not enough
experts, typically can’t afford/sustain them
-Interplanetary small satellite missions often need longer
schedules than typical Earth orbiting SmallSats
-Commercial vendor capability
– Only a few commercial vendor is willing to do
custom products and services, but that comes with
high NRE costs and time
– The uniqueness of technology deters most
company from developing one of a kind technology
due to unpopular demand.
– Costly and timely for
-Long lead items still remains and drives schedule and costs
-Small budget supporting the team, limited support, needs to
multi-disciplinary which isn’t your typical entry level engineers and
scientist
12MarCO – 6U
RainCube – 6U
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Cost vs Implementation Capabilities
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Implementation Capability* over time (in many ways)
Established standardization, fundamental technologies,
manufacturing and tooling, experience, expertise,
automation, etc…
Cost`
http://grapgat.blogspot.com/2007/08/stone-age-it.html
https://etinsights.et-edge.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/06/Automation.jpg
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Challenges - Operations
•The large distance from Earth can cause significant
challenges for interplanetary mission operations
-Requires the use of the Deep Space Network for
communications
-Likely have only one (or less) communication
opportunities with the spacecraft per day
-Long communication delays require the spacecraft
to be self-sufficient and make troubleshooting
anomalies difficult
• Mission Design and Navigation is a significant driver for
interplanetary missions
-Even small satellites require a mission design and
navigation team
-This area does not shrink as much as other areas,
when compared to larger missions
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Challenges – Access to Space
•Access to Space for interplanetary missions is
significantly more challenging than for Earth
orbiters, since the spacecraft must escape Earth’s
gravity well.
•Typically accomplished via rideshare with a
larger deep space mission (MarCO with Insight,
CubeSats with Artemis-1), but these opportunities
do not come up very often.
• Furthermore, the trajectory that the primary
mission is taking may not be ideal for secondary
SmallSat missions
•New, smaller launch vehicles may provide other
opportunities for SmallSat launch, but currently
they are constrained to Earth orbit and escaping
Earth’s gravity well requires significantly more
delta-V
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CAPSTONE
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Making Headlines… “Extra, Extra, Read all
about it!”
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Challenges - Costs
• Science instrument drives the mission costs (typically)
• Lack of full and transparent cost mission data broken down by work
breakdown structure (WBS)
• Limited to no data available on cubesat/smallsat mission and technology
development
• Cost model does not predict well given the limited to no data on
interplanetary type missions
– Business market is changing rapidly and cost models cannot keep up
with the changes– For example, GeneSat (2006) total mission cost was ~$8M for a 3U cubesat,
now it could be more like ~$2M-3M (Factor of 2 to 3 times different)
• Big science goals and small mission doesn’t necessarily mean a reduction in total
mission costs. Still costs a lot for science and engineering experts to do ambitious
science
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• Sparse correlation data, platform and cost varies
• If you plot the mass, volume and costs, does not follow a trendline
Past, Present, and Future
Interplanetary Small Sat Missions
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Disclaimer - The cost information contained in this document is of a budgetary and planning nature and is
intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute a commitment on the part of JPL and/or Caltech.
Mission Launch
Launch Delays
Access to Space Platform Estimated Cost, $M
Lunar Trail Blazer Rideshare - IMAP TBD Small Sat $55
Janus Rideshare - Psyche TBD Small Sat $55
Escapade TBD TBD Small Sat $55
Marco Insight Yes 6U $18
Capstone (includes Launch) Rocket Lab TBD Small Sat $30
Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity M2020 No 1U $80
Aeolus TBD TBD Small Sat $75
NEAScout Artemis-1 Yes 6U $45
LunaH-MAP Artemis-1 Yes 6U $6
BioStentinel Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
Lunar Flashlight Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
AroMoon Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
CubeSat for Solar Particles Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
Lunar Flashlight Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
Lunar IceCube Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
SkyFire Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
OMOTENASHI Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
Cislunar Explorers Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
Earth Escape Explorer Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
Team Miles Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
EQUULEUS Artemis-1 Yes 6U TBD
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Example Missions
•Luna H-Map
–Implementation: Complexity of instrument
development
–Access to Space: SLS launch delay caused cost
growth
•MarCO
–Technology: Radio and propulsion system
–Access to Space: Insight launch delay caused
cost growth, storage, re-test, etc…
•Mars Helicopter
–Technology: New type of mobility drives cost
-Implementation: Study of rotorcraft on other
planets started back in 1997, Helicopter study
started early 2000s
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The Challenges are Cost Drivers
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Recommendations
•Recognize the challenges and plan for them form the earliest stages of
formulation
•Take advantage of NASA opportunities to work with experts in deep space
mission design, such as the Planetary Science Deep Space SmallSat (PSDS3)
studies
•Continue to collaborate among NASA, industry, and universities to enhance
the SmallSat state of the art in technologies and implementation approaches
•Carry large cost reserves, especially on new technologies
• Have good book keeping practices – start with NASA standard WBS and have
an integrated master schedule. This is how you know when trouble is coming
•Cost estimating, evaluating costs, and cost validation will be a challenge for
interplanetary mission as data is all over the place. Should get input from
experienced PM and experts. Traditional cost models made for larger mission is
not appropriate
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Summary
• Small Satellites have seen a huge growth in the last decade, but interplanetary missions
come with unique challenges which can significantly drive cost and schedule.
– Technology
– Implementation
– Operations
– Access to Space
• It is critical to understand these challenges when scoping new mission concepts to ensure
that they are feasible and will be successful – mission success, on-time, and on budget
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QUESTIONS
©Michael Saing
Astrophotography
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