Small Satellite Cost Estimation

Small Satellite Cost Estimation

Quantifying the Cost Reduction Potential for Earth Observation Satellites
Cost estimation is a critical issue in the planning of a large project and may prove to be a vital determinant of final success. Despite its great importance, predicting the cost of developing complex high-technology systems and products, based a good deal on research and development, is difficult and carries a degree of uncertainty in the results. The difficulty of the process has been especially evident in projects for which there was little prior experience. Estimating satellite development costs has been just such an endeavor, in which history shows cost overruns are not uncommon.

In response to shrinking federal budgets, cost overruns on large satellite programs and advances in cell phone technology, small satellites are now coming into their own for both civilian and increasingly military missions, where commanders need faster intelligence on the ground. Small satellites — from tiny pico and CubeSats to larger microsatellites — are fast becoming a cost-effective device of choice for low Earth orbit science, research and Earth observation missions. These low-mass (less than 1,000 kilos) spacecraft are significantly less expensive to build and deploy, making them an increasingly attractive option.

CubeSats — A Costing + Pricing Challenge [9]

NASA Learns That Faster And Cheaper Isn't Always So - NYTimes.com
A program announced in 1994, the Small Spacecraft Technology Initiative, should have resulted in two satellites named for the 19th century American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark orbiting Earth today, making detailed measurements of surface features and doing environmental sampling. Together, the two satellites were to demonstrate 55 new technologies and fly seven major instruments developed by industry, university and government scientists.

Instead, Clark was never built, a victim of instrument problems, testing delays and rising costs. And Lewis, launched into orbit on Aug. 23, 1997, re-entered the atmosphere and burned up a month later. Investigators said Lewis spun out of control and lost power because of flawed control system design and inadequate monitoring by ground controllers.

''Lewis and Clark were not high-profile missions and didn't raise a lot of eyebrows when they failed,'' said Marcia S. Smith, a space policy expert with the Congressional Research Service, ''but they showed you can do faster, smaller, cheaper, but don't necessarily get better.''
TU Delft: Small satellite projects and their cost
From Typical cost data for university and other small satellite projects, it is found that typical costs per kg of satellite mass are in the range of US$10.000-60.000 (1997 dollars).
Typical launch costs for small satellites in the order of about 50 kg range from practically zero to about US$ 50.000. For example, launch costs for YES-Sat were essentially zero, whereas for TUBSAT a value of about US$45.000 (1997) is reported.
Ground station and operations costs as reported by the University of Surrey are [Sweeting, 1989]:

• Hard- and software costs (excluding housing): £ 100.000
• Running costs (k£ 65-90/year):
• maintenance: k£ 15/year
• S/C operations: k£ 25/year
• Payload operations: k£ 25-50/year

In 1997 dollars, this comes down to about US$200.000 for hard- and software and about US$130.000-185.000/year for operations

In the present budget environment, there is a strong need to dramatically drive down the cost of space missions. There is the perception that SmallSats are inherently much lower cost than more traditional larger satellites and can play a central role in reducing overall space mission cost, but this effect has been difficult to quantify. Without quantifiable evidence of their value, SmallSats are under-utilized as a method for reducing space mission cost. The purpose of the USC [4] study was to quantify the relationship between cost and performance for space systems, by creating a Performance-Based Cost Model (PBCM). Today, most acquisition performance analyses focus on cost overruns, or how much the system costs relative to what it is expected to cost. Instead, PBCM allows designers to focus on more important questions, such as, how much performance we can achieve for a given cost, or what the cost is for a given level of performance. Shao [4] presented the relationship between cost vs. orbit altitude for a fixed resolution and coverage requirement, cost vs. resolution, and cost vs. coverage. Traditional cost models for space systems are typically weight-based, primarily because mass allocation is determined early in mission design and has historically correlated well with actual hardware cost. To provide the underlying cost data for this study, they applied 3 cost models widely used throughout the aerospace cost modeling community:

1. the Unmanned Space Vehicle Cost Model (USCM), 
2. the Aerospace Corp. Small Satellite Cost Model (SSCM), and 
3. the NASA Instrument Cost Model (NICM).

The PBCM was applied for Earth observation systems. Past Earth observation systems have used traditional space technology to achieve the best possible performance, but have been very expensive. In addition, low-cost, responsive dedicated launch has not been available for SmallSats. Space system mass is proportional to the cube of the linear dimensions—equivalent to saying that most spacecraft have about the same density. This means that by flying at lower altitudes, satellites can reduce their payload size and therefore the entire mass of the satellite, thus reducing the cost of the system dramatically. Shao [4] conclude that for an Earth observation system, an increase in performance, reduction in cost, or both, is possible by using multiple SmallSats at lower altitudes when compared to traditional systems. Specifically,

• By using modern microelectronics and light-weight materials such as composite structures, future SmallSats observation systems, operating at a lower altitude than traditional systems, have the potential for:
• Comparable or better performance (resolution and coverage)
• Much lower overall mission cost (by a factor of 2 to 10)
• Lower risk (both implementation and operations)
• Shorter schedules
• Relevant secondary advantages for the low-altitude SmallSats include:
• –Lower up-front development cost
• –More sustainable business model
• –More flexible and resilient
• –More responsive to both new technologies and changing needs
• –Mitigates the problem of orbital debris

The principal demerits of the approach are the lack of low-cost launch vehicles, the need for a new way of doing business, and changing the way we think about the use of space assets.

Comparison of costs estimated using RAND Corporation’s analogous cost model applied to known S/C and instrument costs [19], [22] – dashed lines, SMAD’s Small Satellite Cost model [4] – solid lines with data from real missions – text colored by the closest modeled spacecraft weights

Cost and risk analysis of small satellite constellations for earth observation
Distributed Space Missions (DSMs) are gaining momentum in their application to Earth science missions owing to their ability to increase observation sampling in spatial, spectral, temporal and angular dimensions. Past literature from academia and industry have proposed and evaluated many cost models for spacecraft as well as methods for quantifying risk. However, there have been few comprehensive studies quantifying the cost for multiple spacecraft, for small satellites and the cost risk for the operations phase of the project which needs to be budgeted for when designing and building efficient architectures. This paper identifies the three critical problems with the applicability of current cost and risk models to distributed small satellite missions and uses data-based modeling to suggest changes that can be made in some of them to improve applicability. Learning curve parameters to make multiple copies of the same unit, technological complexity based costing and COTS enabled small satellite costing have been studied and insights provided.

References:

1. Y. Karatas and F. Ince, "Feature article: Fuzzy expert tool for small satellite cost estimation," in IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, vol. 31, no. 5, pp. 28-35, May 2016.
   doi: 10.1109/MAES.2016.140210
   URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7498200&isnumber=7498168
2. Estimating-the-Cost-of-Space-Systems_2014.pdf 
3. Smaller is Better How Small Satellites Have become a Compelling Option - Via Satellite - 
4. Quantifying the Cost Reduction Potential for Earth Observation Satellites
   Microsoft PowerPoint - RS14 Presentation Final.pptx - RS14 Presentation Final.pdf
   Anthony Shao, Microcosm/University of Southern California, Elizabeth A. Koltz, University of Southern California, James R. Wertz, Microcosm/University of Southern California
   Quantifying the Cost Reduction Potential for Earth Observation Satellites
   12th Reinventing Space Conference 18-20 November 2014 London, UK
5. Guidelines and Metrics for Assessing Space System Cost Estimates - RAND_TR418.pdf 
6. Small Satellite Cost Model (SSCM) - 19_SSCM14_Development_for_2015_NASA_Cost_Symposium.pdf 
7. Space Systems Cost Modeling - Prof. David W. Miller, Col. John Keesee, Mr. Cyrus Jilla  
8. SatMagazine FOCUS: CubeSats — A Costing + Pricing Challenge by Jos Heyman  
9. 7 Opportunities and Challenges in Managing Small Satellite Systems | The Role of Small Satellites in NASA and NOAA Earth Observation Programs | The National Academies Press 
10. Herbert J. Kramer & Arthur P. Cracknell (2008) An overview of small satellites in remote sensing , International Journal of Remote Sensing, 29:15, 4285-4337, DOI: 10.1080/01431160801914952, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01431160801914952 
11. Cost Overruns Threaten DARPA Satellite Refueling Experiment 
12. Appendix D: Case Studies | The Role of Small Satellites in NASA and NOAA Earth Observation Programs | The National Academies Press 
13. Quantifying the Effect of Orbit Altitude on Mission Cost for Earth Observation Satellites (AIAA) 
14. Scorpius Low Cost Launch Services Executive Summary 2377 Crenshaw Blvd., Suite 350 Torrance, CA 90501 Phone: (310) 320-0555 FAX: (310) 320-0252 Web: www.scorpius.com Dr. Robert Conger E-Mail: rconger@smad.com Nov 1999 - PBCM-ICEAA-Koltz-update.pdf 
15. Estimating-the-Cost-of-Space-Systems_2014.pdf 
16. Boghosian_A Cost Estimating Methodology for Very Small Satellites.pdf 
17. COST AND MASS ESTIMATION MODEL OF SMALL SATELLITES AT SYSTEM DESIGN LEVEL  
18. Space Systems Cost Modeling 
19. Microsoft Word - ATR-2013-00108.docx - secure-MAHR-BITTEN-Aerospace_Costing_Space_Science_Missions_ATR-2013-00108.pdf 
20. Small Satellite Cost Model (SSCM) - 19_SSCM14_Development_for_2015_NASA_Cost_Symposium.pdf 
21. Small Satellite Cost Model | The Aerospace Corporation 
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