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Current and Future Commercial Landscape

INTRODUCTION

Commercial SmallSat Overview

The global space economy accounted for $371 billion in 2020, where $271 billion (73 percent) of those revenues were directly driven by satellite industry services spanning telecommunications and remote sensing ($117.8 billion), satellite manufacturing ($12.2 billion), ground equipment ($135.3 billion; e.g., satellite TV dishes, network hardware, etc.), and the launch industry ($5.3 billion).¹ While the remaining approximately $100 billion of economic activity (27 percent) represents non-satellite industry revenues across U.S. and international government and commercial human spaceflight activities, space missions often rely on capabilities and advancements by commercial industry in all of these segments to support mission objectives. Of the $117.8 billion of satellite industry services revenues in 2020, $2.6 billion, or less than 3 percent, were due to remote sensing. In addition, in 2020 only 3 percent of the total market share of satellites in operation were categorized as “scientific” by the Satellite Industry Association. Government agencies have recognized SmallSats as a disruptive innovation that can provide a means to effectively address their goals. The commercial industry—both New Space and traditional space organizations—have also realized that there is a growing market to address government needs. As a result, there is an interplay between companies looking to identify the capabilities that government organizations need to effectively use SmallSats for mission-critical applications, as well as government users searching to identify how commercial industry can address their challenges. These communities need to be responsive to each other in areas where the future state of commercial development for SmallSats, and the capabilities that developers will require from industry, will drive innovations and activities within both groups and the field in general. This interplay is actively driving the current and future ecosystem landscape of SmallSat commercial services and partnerships; the development impactful to future mission principal investigators; and those that would seek to utilize the outcomes of their work.

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¹ Bryce Space and Technology, 2021, State of the Satellite Industry Report, BryceTech, Alexandria, VA, http://brycetech.com/reports.

THE BUSINESS INTEREST AND SCOPE OF COMMERCIAL SMALLSAT ACTIVITY

Over the past 10 years, there has been a revitalization of interest in the utilization of space, driven by advances in launch capability, technologies enabling the ability to build spacecraft more rapidly and affordably, and new science and economic opportunities created by observations from low Earth orbit (LEO), and potentially from geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) and other orbits. SmallSats are significant contributors to this paradigm shift, where the trends have been remarkable over this period of time. From 2011 to 2020, 3,968 spacecraft were launched worldwide, of which 2,972 (75 percent) were SmallSats categorized as spacecraft less than 600 kilograms. Of these 2,972 SmallSats, 68 percent were operated by U.S. organizations, including SpaceX, where 2,013 were commercial SmallSat launches over this 10-year time frame. Focusing on these 2,013 commercial SmallSat launches, 83 percent were owned/operated by SpaceX, Planet, Spire Global, OneWeb, and Swarm Technologies (recently acquired by SpaceX in July 2021), while the remaining 17 percent were managed by 124 other commercial operators. In 2020 alone, there were 1,202 SmallSats launched; 937 were commercial missions from SpaceX’s Starlink and OneWeb and 174 represented all other SmallSat missions. The remaining 91 SmallSats launched in 2020 were a mixture of government civil/military and nonprofit missions (see Figure 2.1).²

Commercial organizations, over the past 10 years, have demonstrated on-orbit capabilities of small satellites primarily for technology development, science, remote sensing, and communications missions. While only a small percentage (10 percent in 2020) of SmallSats launched are dedicated to science missions, the capabilities being demonstrated across the commercial space industry show significant potential to assist in discoveries across numerous and diverse scientific disciplines beyond those typically attainable with higher-cost single satellite approaches.

Studies of the Sun-Earth connection, gravity research, and Earth climate science including coastal and ocean science provide just a few of the many examples where constellations, multi-satellite formations, or clusters of small satellites might provide transformative science advancements. Because of the interconnected nature of geoscience subsystems, local dynamic processes do not act in isolation, but often aggregate to influence other subsystems on global scales.³ Leveraging a multi-satellite approach to collect simultaneous space-based measurements on larger scales can potentially provide insight into how local variations affect distant and seemingly unconnected regions, while also offering answers to rapid temporal changes that would otherwise be missed through single satellite data collections. Furthermore, for some science investigations the potential to add and fuse simultaneous measurements from various phenomenologies, such as VIS/NIR with SAR, could provide a richer understanding of the region being investigated, thus increasing its scientific value.

Although some of the commercial missions currently being flown are seemingly unrelated to the scientific examples provided above, the knowledge being gained throughout the commercial industry in building satellite buses, sensors, ground operations and data analysis centers, autonomous operations, inter-satellite connectivity, on-board data processing, and launch and deployment of large numbers of space assets from a single launch vehicle have direct applicability to numerous science mission areas. These commercial organizations are developing and increasing the capabilities of SmallSat systems and subsystems, and at a rapid pace, that can be leveraged by current and future scientists to accomplish their specific missions. As scientists look for new ways to collect data, and new types of data, these emerging capabilities may be able to provide valuable pieces to scientific puzzles. It is expected that as these capabilities continue to increase, scientists will be motivated to leverage these new tools in heretofore unseen ways to gain knowledge within their areas of expertise, thus influencing the future of science missions and their discoveries.

Commercial development and deployment of large constellations ought not to be interpreted as stifling competition in the commercial space for data products and technology. These activities are spurring growth in the industry—an industry that is also benefiting from dramatic increases in start-up space company investment. From 2000 to 2020 worldwide, there were 1,212 unique investors spanning venture capital firms (52 percent), angel investors (20 percent), corporations (18 percent), private equity firms (6 percent), and banks (4 percent), where $36.7 billion has been invested. In 2020 alone, $7.6 billion has been invested from venture capital, public offerings,

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² Bryce Space and Technology, 2021, SmallSats by the Numbers, BryceTech, Alexandria, VA, http://brycetech.com/reports.

³ L. Dyrud et al., 2013, “Small-Sat Science Constellations: Why and How,” 27th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, SSC13VI-9, DigitalCommons@USU.

acquisitions, debt financing, private equity sources, and other sources (seed/prize/grant, etc.) in the start-up space industry worldwide. Venture capital investment represented 64 percent of the total 2020 start-up space investment. There have also been recent increases in Special-Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs)⁴ in the space industry. SPACs are publicly traded companies that seek to raise funds and acquire a private company with the intent to go public via a “reverse merger” more rapidly than via an initial public offering (IPO). A number of SmallSat companies have recently gone public via a SPAC.

Although telecommunication needs have been a key industry driver, capabilities for remote sensing are also prominent, and New Space companies are structuring their businesses with future government customers in mind. Over the period from 2011 to 2020, the Department of Defense (DoD), based on publicly available information, launched the most as a government military organization (77 satellites),⁵ with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launching the largest number of SmallSats in civil space (56 satellites). Government customers may not represent the largest business base today, but demonstrating success with high-profile agencies such as DoD, NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) strengthens corporate reputations while broadening community interest in SmallSats and commercial partnerships as a means to advance mission objectives of national priority.

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⁴ Bryce Space and Technology, 2021, Start-Up Space: Update on Investment in Commercial Space Ventures 2021, BryceTech, Alexandria, VA, https://brycetech.com/reports.

⁵ Bryce Space and Technology, 2021, SmallSats by the Numbers 2021, BryceTech, Alexandria, VA, https://brycetech.com/reports.

AREAS OF COMMERCIAL SMALLSAT DEVELOPMENT

Commercial development activity for SmallSat missions largely emerged from CubeSat standards developed in the 1990s. The standard subsequently fostered the design of miniaturized components and subsystems for CubeSat spacecraft including global positioning system (GPS) receivers, attitude determination and control systems, radios, solar panels, antennas, deployment systems, and other equipment. Considerable progress has been made; however, there is still a long way to go before a spacecraft of any size can be assembled from individual off-the-shelf components capable of hosting a scientific payload. Individual developers have successfully integrated subsystems into full spacecraft leading to the emergence of commercial companies that assumed this role as a business opportunity. Such companies design and develop full spacecraft buses ready for independent payload integration by the user or the industry spacecraft provider. This provided a means for industry to mature spacecraft through real flight experience, while producing small satellite product lines of increasing sophistication and size ranging from nanosatellites and up. This allowed developers to conceive focused measurements in their scientific area of expertise, relying upon commercial services for spacecraft and other infrastructure support.

Launch accommodation and integration services have been long-established commercial areas enabling access to space, but the emergence of SmallSats grew these services with new entrants specialized for such payloads across a variety of interface systems on launch vehicles and the International Space Station (ISS). Launch brokers have performed a key role, largely relieving investigators of managing the complexities of acquiring rideshare⁶ launch opportunities compatible with their mission requirements. As the need for greater flexibility in orbit parameters, and the sheer increase in the number of SmallSats looking to procure launch opportunities grew, industry responded with the development of dedicated launch services. Currently, there are 155 organizations working to provide launch capabilities for SmallSats.⁷ These companies, while still maturing, have shown great promise to provide rapid and targeted launch services, freeing SmallSats from the primary payload dependencies associated with typical rideshare opportunities.

The rapid growth of SmallSats has also opened new commercial opportunities in ground services spanning spacecraft communications, testing, and data management. Industry is building and expanding ground stations to support global and near-real-time monitoring and interaction with SmallSats, largely in support of the growth in constellation missions. Distributed cloud computing infrastructure, integrated with telecommunications, is in active commercial development where users no longer need to build and/or maintain the capability themselves, paying rates directly tied to the level of service and performance desired. Commercial industry has also moved to provide observational measurements as a service for purchase through data-buys, while others are making a business in data curation, fusion, quality control, and analytics. Commercial services for SmallSat vehicle testing are also enabling many new investigation opportunities by eliminating the requirements for mission-specific equipment and facilities. This approach scales well beyond functional testing to areas where detailed expertise is required, including calibration and validation of sensitive payloads, electromagnetic interference (EMI) and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC), cleanliness, outgassing requirements, environmental testing, coupled loads analysis, and related capabilities.

Miniaturization of instruments and payloads, with their integration into SmallSat flight systems to provide data products, is also rapidly growing within the commercial sector. Commercial SmallSats of minisatellite size are now flying with radars, spectrometers, radiometers, polarimeters, altimeters, and sensors of other types. As mentioned, remote sensing is a growing part of commercial business interest, where there is an opportunity to leverage capability advancements, and to influence them, in partnership with leading government and academic institutions. Fundamental research will continue within government laboratories and universities, but commercial

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⁶ Rideshare: Utilization of a launch vehicle, with excess capacity and performance, by payloads that are not considered part of the primary mission. Rideshare payloads do not drive the launch schedule, or orbit parameters, and need to typically satisfy “do no harm” requirements to minimize risk relative to the primary mission.

⁷ C. Niederstrasser, 2021, “Small Launchers in a Pandemic World—2021 Edition of the Annual Industry Survey,” 35th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, DigitalCommons@USU.

organizations⁸ are now transitioning proven research observations into systems and information products for a growing customer base.

Typically, the mission developer is responsible for determining how to assess all of these commercial services and how to utilize them to bring a complete mission into successful operation. Determining how to coordinate among commercial and noncommercial entities introduces flight development risks (such as incompatibilities among hardware and software subsystem interfaces) that have to be mitigated via experience, placing new developers at a significant disadvantage toward achieving mission success. As a result, new trends in commercial industry have emerged in the form of integrated services, vertically within a specific company or horizontally among companies that provide a coordination function. These companies utilize the capabilities of other subcontractor organizations with specific expertise, although the integration of services within the commercial industry is still limited and will necessitate further expansion. Nevertheless, what is clear is that numerous areas once solely the responsibility of the spacecraft developer to manage now have commercial options to the approach in which missions can be developed. In the grand scheme of spacecraft development, many of these commercial areas are not new, but most have not been designed and/or tailored for the properties and principles of SmallSat systems. This is the business opportunity gap that much of the commercial industry has identified in recent years, and will continue to fill as the New Space ecosystem develops.

MARKET AND INDUSTRY TRENDS

Commercial organizations are not only providing numerous services for developers, they are now also the largest operators of SmallSats. From 2011 to 2020, Planet owned 22 percent of all remote sensing SmallSats launched, while SpaceX owned 47 percent of all communications SmallSats. Both of these companies are flying large constellations in LEO. In addition, SmallSats have grown from only 1–2 percent of the total upmass (the payload mass that is carried into orbit) to orbit from 2011 to 2017 to 43 percent in 2020, owing to SpaceX’s Starlink and OneWeb launches.⁹ The introduction of commercial mega constellations from SpaceX and Planet have grown the upmass of SmallSats to orbit significantly when compared to the total mass to orbit. Note that mass, scientific value, and even cost need to be treated as independent variables when assessing how commercialization impacts satellite development as a whole. As previously mentioned, $7.6 billion has been invested into start-up space companies in 2020 alone, where 64 percent of that amount represents venture capital investment,¹⁰ and this trend is expected to continue. Thus, one needs to consider how scientists may seek to benefit from such market and industry trends.

In the context of assessing partnerships for mission development, it is useful to examine how commercial services and partnering interact. The New Space ecosystem landscape consists of partnerships and commercial services. The context of assessing how these both support the needs of mission development is qualitatively shown in Figure 2.2 as also influenced by the history of work within this community.^11,12 This diagram represents the evolution over time of the utilization of partnerships and commercial services for SmallSat mission development. The degree of partnerships applied to SmallSat mission development increases in the vertical direction from no partnerships at the bottom to full partnerships at the top. The degree of commercial services applied to SmallSat mission development increases in the horizontal direction from no commercial services at the left to full commercial services at the right. In this manner, the diagram spans the full landscape of partnering and commercial services as applied to SmallSat missions over time.

Moving along the “Time Evolution of Commercial SmallSat Use,” historically, most government SmallSat developers produced systems on their own with little commercial services involvement. This harkens back to the

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⁸ See SmallSat Alliance for commercial listings: https://smallsatalliance.org/members.

⁹ Bryce Space and Technology, 2021, SmallSats by the Numbers 2021, BryceTech, Alexandria, VA, https://brycetech.com/reports.

¹⁰ Bryce Space and Technology, 2021, Start-Up Space: Update on Investment in Commercial Space Ventures 2021, BryceTech, Alexandria, VA, https://brycetech.com/reports.

¹¹ M. Sweeting, 2018, Modern small satellites—changing the economics of space, Proceedings IEEE, 106(3).

¹² S. Janson, 2021, “Thirty-Five Years of Small Satellites,” 35th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, DigitalCommons@USU.

early days of university CubeSat mission development focused primarily on student training experiences. To the extent that services procurements occurred, or were even possible, such subsystems were not easily interoperable so the level of expertise of the development team (often at universities) needed to be high. Even when commercial industry produced various system components, the level of reliability was uncertain or initially poor. Furthermore, these institutions typically did not have the financial resources to procure services such as testing, telecommunications, radio frequency licensing and, therefore, performed such work on their own. Nevertheless, missions were launched with various basic objectives, failures were common except for a few key institutions that found success and leveraged it across subsequent missions. As mission experience grew, both government and academic users looking to gain entrance into SmallSat development often formed partnerships with these institutions. These experiences were oftentimes incubators resulting in the formation of small commercial companies that produced standardized CubeSat/SmallSat kits, as well as key specific subsystems that became de facto standards for most developers. Numerous technological advances also occurred over this time period based on effective partnerships among government, academia, and emerging industry players. This transition formed the next stage of greater reliability for SmallSat mission development.

With maturation and growing sophistication of the New Space commercial sector came benefits in partnering to leverage both the services and flight heritage products from key industry leaders. Moving toward the “Target SmallSat Mission Development Regime,” this highlights the effectiveness of these commercial services partnerships that reduced the burden on new investigators to produce successful flight missions for measurements of interest. This also allowed developers to rely more upon industry services and less on prior institutional partnerships if so desired. Indeed, this is the regime of partnerships and commercial interactions that traditionally leads to successful large strategic missions. It also represents, as will be discussed, the target regime for the maturation of SmallSat missions to support observations and measurements of national interest, representing emerging and future trends in time toward providing alternative mission architectures for long-term sustainable science matching previous large strategic missions.

This history shows a progression of past developments influenced by partnerships and commercialization. It also provides a framework to explore a notional timeline for the future development of technology, infrastructure, and processes that can enable a new generation of investigators and missions for government use where commercial services may represent the baseline development approach. The transition across the landscape of partnerships and services accelerated rapidly over the past decade. Indicators are that future market and industry trends are aggressively moving toward full commercial service mission development, in that most investigators will have the ability to outsource nearly all of their mission development to commercial industry with limited additional collaborative partnerships. When observing how various companies are consolidating to provide end-to-end services, and how others are leveraging commercialization through multiple contract mechanisms to include specific capabilities (e.g., launch and testing services) as part of a full mission lifecycle development offering, it is possible that fully outsourced mission development will be a viable option for principal investigators in the future.

Considering this landscape, Figure 2.3 illustrates examples of the range of organizations that reside across this ecosystem as well as a potential development path for government investigators aspiring to employ commercial partnerships to help achieve their space-related mission.

SmallSat development, in terms of these parameters, is evolving using limited partnerships and commercial engagement to the desired end-state of effective utilization of commercial service capabilities to the fullest practical extent. This approach is pitched more toward commercialization than other external partnerships, identifying significant partnering as critical for rapid transition from a level of relative inexperience to mission execution with national strategic importance. There will always be government organizations that will seek to use SmallSats for areas of interest where high levels of partnering may be limited, but even in those instances, commercial services can provide viable benefits. It is unlikely that these government customers would seek to outsource their development completely even as industry capabilities advance. Understanding this range of development helps establish a basis to determine what process enhancements in technology development, standards, and best practices can support the development of government missions.

Even in the context of government mission development striving to have an appropriate balance between commercial services and partnerships, this does not mean that government SmallSat users may be effective only in the target regime. Such users may find specific benefits throughout this landscape depending on their specific objectives. Proprietary development organizations provide opportunities for development of specialized in-house capabilities for SmallSat missions that may be necessary for security or other reasons. Large consortium institutions may promote intra-government partnerships or specific academic partnerships where commercial capabilities are nonessential to meet mission objectives. Companies that provide full integrated mission services may be a rational regime if there are organizations that do not have the capability to develop missions independently, but nevertheless have unique data needs that can be satisfied by outsourcing the full mission development to commercial industry. This may be of particular value when an existing commercial solution exists to meet mission requirements in a manner that would be more affordable than commercial data-buys or other approaches. While the path of SmallSat mission development has progressed in time, and is still evolving, it needs to be stated that the desired end state of the target SmallSat mission development regime may not be the optimal for all circumstances. All of these factors identify and drive market and industry trends in the near term, affecting how one considers assessment of partnership options for commercial services supporting mission development for government and other interests.

Commercial SmallSat-Related Services

The services provided by the commercial industry for SmallSats are constantly evolving. For the government developer seeking to support high-priority missions, potentially through the integration of experimental payloads to support new measurements, one needs to assess if the commercial infrastructure is sufficiently mature across all service areas to support these goals. This infrastructure spans spacecraft industrial manufacturing, communications, information systems, system integration, launch, testing, and maintenance services. For example, a variety of systems and services need to come together to support satellite launch, especially rideshare launch where multiple satellites are involved. In the broadest sense, multiple satellites are integrated with launch vehicles according to launch windows that accommodate required orbit parameters and timelines. In the past, launch vehicle processing and satellite integration were the majority of commercial services a developer could expect. More and more of these needs are becoming service-oriented capabilities where commercial organizations can support launch vehicle manifest, satellite integration, range safety requirements, mission operations, data return, analysis, and archiving. Today, the breadth of commercial services for SmallSats can be seen at nearly every stage of mission develop-

ment, yet the maturity of these services can vary widely. Given the rate of change across all commercial services, developers need to constantly monitor progress in these areas while remaining ready to rapidly adopt traditional and new capabilities as they mature.

Spacecraft bus development for SmallSats, ranging from CubeSats under 10 kg through SmallSats up to 600 kg has largely become commoditized by industry based on the intended use. However, plug-and-play standards that support seamless integration of subsystems between vendors remains elusive. There are many organizations that are capable of delivering a complete spacecraft flight system with integrated payloads based on proprietary spacecraft system designs. In general, SmallSat payload development for science missions is still dominated by investigators producing high-performance custom designs that rely on industry components yet cannot be developed by industry at the required levels of sensitivity and precision. There are exceptions, however, where companies are targeting specific markets (e.g., synthetic aperture radar and visible imagery), developing flight systems that have produced data products of unprecedented resolution for SmallSats. Others are creating data fusion, quality control, and analytics commercial services for integration of SmallSat data, sometimes with other data sources, to produce new tailored products and/or simply making their existing satellite products available via data-buy programs.

Ground services, particularly global satellite communications for SmallSats, provides a means to avoid designing, developing, and maintaining ground communications equipment and staff, where users can establish contracts for levels and quality of services based on need. Various commercial bus providers even support mission operations as a service given their familiarity with the spacecraft design. Cloud computing infrastructure for data management and archiving, supported across a global and distributed data network that can be interfaced to any mission operations center, is growing as a service offering. As space-based networks continue to mature, there will be additional services offered to support space-to-space communications within allowable regulatory frameworks.

Launch services have been one of the most rapidly evolving areas where the government has supported access to space through rideshare launches. Now, the number of commercial organizations providing launch opportunities via rideshare, dedicated, and specialized deployments from the ISS has grown such that there are rarely bottlenecks for access to space—although launches can be delayed for many reasons and some specialized orbital parameters will always present challenges. Hosted payload¹³ services even provide access to GEO, which can be a unique vantage point for certain types of Earth science measurements. Testing and evaluation services for flight systems are also available to ensure that the range of system requirements is satisfied, including calibration/validation of payload systems. These services have been extended to SmallSat spacecraft, thereby saving significant capital expenditures for developers that cannot afford to support such infrastructure.

The technical maturity of commercial services across all these areas varies, as highlighted in Figure 2.4. The mission lifecycle begins with the process of defining data requirements and examining existing data sources to determine if they can be met without building anything new. There is a small but growing set of companies offering commercial data products and a much larger set of companies now offering commercial satellite communication capabilities that, if acceptable, can entirely bypass the complexity involved in developing new systems.

If existing products cannot meet the user needs, the process of mission formulation is initiated in which instrument, spacecraft, and ground systems are conceptualized and carefully traded to arrive at a system specification and implementation plan that meets the technical and program requirements. The implementation plan needs to address solutions for all of the downstream components of the system including (1) development of the instrument, spacecraft bus, and ground infrastructure; (2) procurement of launch services; (3) integration of bus with the instrument, spacecraft with launch vehicle, and space system with ground infrastructure; (4) development of data calibration, validation, and production software pipelines; and (5) development and staffing of mission operations.

Many individual components or sub-systems are becoming available as commercial products or services including spacecraft buses, launch services, Remote Ground Station (RGS) services, mission operations, and cloud software hosting. Although systems engineering, integration, and production operations are largely the responsibility of the customer today, it is anticipated that commercial providers will become more capable of

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¹³ Hosted payload: Parasitic utilization of excess capacity on a commercial or government spacecraft platform where resources such as power, communications, and access to space enable the operation of the payload. Hosted payloads are typically scientific instruments, or other spaceborne items that, depending on the hosting platform design, may not impact control, operation, or resources of the spacecraft platform.

providing integrated space systems offerings such as full spacecraft and mission integration and even end-to-end data production, calibration, and validation.

Figure 2.4 also illustrates how commercial services evolved independently even though specific relationships and dependencies exist. This implies, in terms of the level of maturity of commercial services to support full end-to-end mission designs, that a complete system-level integrated approach does not yet exist. As a result, fully outsourcing complete mission development to a commercial provider is not an option that exists today. The current commercial offerings do not solve all development challenges, but the landscape is rapidly changing, where future capabilities shown in Figure 2.4 are being realized. Infrastructure advancements that could help lead toward full commercial system-level integration capabilities, from mission formulation to on-orbit operations, could begin with systems engineering-based virtual mission design and simulation capabilities tied to hardware in the loop development test-beds emulating relevant measurement environments. There are commercial companies working on such environments, where some success has been seen in the development of tools and infrastructure for custom spacecraft avionics, but work to generalize such systems tied into instrument/payload measurement requirements remains open. In the long term, introduction of commercial services that cover the full range of systems identified in Figure 2.4 would reduce the risk of fielding long-term sustained observations, provided such services are integrated, trusted, reliable, and tailorable to specific customer needs.

Several commercial providers offer hosted payload opportunities today. In these cases, shown in Figure 2.5, the customer delivers an instrument or a payload to the provider, who integrates the instrument, launches it, operates the spacecraft bus, and delivers data and power to and from the instrument on-orbit. In cases where the mission requirements can be met with a hosted payload solution, it significantly reduces the scope and complexity of mission execution for the customer, as many of the components are handled by the host system and are transparent to the user.

While the hosted payload solution can be very attractive, there are also limitations. The constraints (mass, volume, power, thermal, data, and pointing) associated with the payload often significantly limit operational capabilities and because there is no existing standard, these may vary significantly across providers. For some instruments driven by aperture/power, there may not be solutions that physically fit, while for others the mission data allocation or instrument operating duty cycle may become a performance constraint. Additionally, contamination control represents another potential issue for coordination between payloads. If, for example, the primary payload is a communications satellite, then a secondary payload that is a remote sensing satellite may not be able to accept the less restrictive host contamination control plan. Understanding and optimizing to the host constraints is often a significant portion of the mission formulation process, and close collaboration between investigators, instrument developers, and spacecraft host organizations are critical to success. Last, constellation hosting slots are still quite rare (Iridium Next being a primary exception), so in such cases where a constellation is required,

the hosting options may be quite limited. Hosted payload options release the barrier to entry and are worthy of being considered in any small instrument mission that can tolerate the host constraints.

COMMERCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE CAPABILITIES FOR SUPPORTING SCIENCE

Successful adoption of commercial services for the development of science-driven missions relies on an assessment of the state of industry infrastructure and technology capabilities. Table 2.1 identifies commercial infrastructure capabilities, in terms of their current technology state and needed near-term technology advances (e.g., open and interoperable standards enabling mass production and common interfaces), that could benefit future science mission development. Later, Table 2.2 will revisit these commercial capabilities, adding predictions of future capability trends and the expected time frame of their development.

Processes exist that can be employed to enhance technology development pipelines across these infrastructure areas. For example, government space agencies, through prizes, challenges, and other means, have introduced focused technology programs, in partnership with industry, to create targeted capabilities when a specific mission objective has been identified. More generally, however, incremental/staged programs that mature specific categories of technologies from early-stage development through flight validation have been very effective when commercial industry participates in the process.

Examples include the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP) and NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), which matures instrument and information systems technologies with low readiness through a series of development steps to achieve flight system validation. While every stage of this process is competitive, it provides a regular and sustained mechanism for investigators to advance key technologies for infusion into flight missions. As investigators team with commercial industry, it also provides a valuable vector for both partners to gain increased experience with SmallSats.

Developing technologies to support the transitions described in Table 2.1 requires government, academia, and industry to assess the value added in these future capabilities with incentives for all to partner in their development. Satisfying the needs of any one customer would be insufficient. The main incentive is the understanding that SmallSats have demonstrated high-quality science measurements, which can be performed rapidly and affordably, and that greater interoperability and standards can grow the diversity of investigators creating new business opportunities to fly missions of national interest.

COMPARING COMMERCIAL SERVICES MISSION DEVELOPMENT AGAINST ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES

Most SmallSat missions thus far have not been flown in support of long-term sustained observations for operational missions of national interest. One reason has been concerns about reliability, and yet, despite these concerns, several SmallSat constellations have demonstrated remarkable reliability. Two examples are the Planet SkySat constellation, which has accumulated multiple failure-free years on-orbit, and the original Iridium constellation, which represents an early success in a commercial constellation as it was a technological achievement. Commercial services are now emerging that will allow developers to produce these highly reliable systems, especially for constellation-based measurements, but customers need to apply diligence in vendor selection and management as there remains significant variability in process and quality. It is also assumed that these developers will benefit from the nonrecurring engineering (NRE) investments made by industry leading to products and services that are affordable and possess long-term reliability.

Figure 2.6 revisits the ecosystem landscape showing how overall mission development risk is influenced by the degree of partnerships versus degree of commercial services during mission implementation. It provides a qualitative assessment of the trade-offs in mission development approach across these parameters. While the emphasis is on overall mission development risk, the kinds of development risks that can be encountered include development and use of custom subsystems that are unproven, personnel turnover, lack of use of industry-proven capabilities, reliance on commercial subsystems with little to no known flight heritage, development inexperience, and even lack

TABLE 2.1 Commercial Infrastructure Technology Capabilities and Near-Term Needs to Enable National Priorities in Science

NOTE: Various infrastructure-related topics supporting SmallSat mission development are listed allowing comparison of the current state of commercial capability versus technology needs to support future scientific mission development.

of oversight where a high degree of past mission experience and success is assumed. Mitigation of these kinds of risks can vary based on the degree of partnerships and commercial services used, where more tends to be better.

Many new developers experience such risks when much of the entire mission is developed in-house. Even for the most experienced organizations, avoidance of proven commercial services and limited partnerships introduces higher risks because all of the “corporate memory” and expertise for product and mission development is centrally located within the organization. A loss of any key individual directly impacts the overall team until a replacement is found. Increasing the level of partnerships can not only protect against skill loss or turnover, but also opens the door for wider diversity of participation, potentially leading to more creative solutions.

Continuing along the time evolution of commercial services use, the greater use of commercial services, assuming collaboration with proven organizations, provides the strongest balance especially when developing first-of-a-kind missions of national or strategic importance. Experienced commercial teams and other strategic partners can be fully leveraged, representing the most desired state for SmallSat mission development with lower overall mission development risk. This enables a balance among commercial services and developer-driven innovations specific to key measurements of interest. As always, extensive partnerships bring inherent communication risks

that need to be actively managed across institutional interfaces. This is true when government organizations deliver subsystems to industry for system integration activities or when government and industry collaborate throughout all phases of mission development.

As the ecosystem landscape evolves toward a capability for full commercial services for mission development, this can increase certain risks in that nearly the entire mission development has been ceded to commercial industry, meaning that the ability to perform innovative measurements of national interest may be limited to the capabilities represented by the current state-of-the-art of commercial organizations. This can create a ceiling in mission capability. A potential mitigation factor here would be for commercial providers to be contractually incentivized to develop and maintain strong research and development activities in addition to sustaining their standard production capabilities. Forming strong long-term working relationships with innovators in academia and industry would also serve to infuse new technologies and best practices into industry improving existing product lines with new capabilities over time.

Future Trends in Commercial Development for Science Missions

There has been significant growth and establishment of commercial flight systems over the past 10 years. This has resulted in an expansion of measurement capabilities from innovative miniaturized instruments, an increase in the design trade space of measurement opportunities, and a greater diversity of options for access to space. Commercial industry has always influenced the success of large mission development, but now that SmallSats can provide viable alternatives to produce results at the same, or even improved, quality levels of traditional missions the role of legacy and the New Space industry will grow in significance in the coming years. Table 2.2 shows some future trends in SmallSat development where industry, government, and academia can partner to fully establish such capabilities within the next 10 years for scientific measurements for a wide range of applications.

Managing partnerships to achieve these advances means requirements will need to be established with appropriate roles agreed upon among government, industry, and academia. Mechanisms exist for industry to directly commercialize capabilities emerging from government and academia in areas such as instrument and sensors whereas in others, such as launch accommodation, industry needs to continue to lead. Broadening of government management understanding and acceptance of commercial capabilities and opportunities are needed for commercial industry to positively impact SmallSat mission developers; to institute new partnerships for focused technology development; to develop the relevant infrastructure components; and, to do so in a manner that is reliable and sustainable. This also requires balancing decision-making and risk in an actively changing environment.

Coordination will still be required to transition these capability advancements into operational use by developers. Organizations, such as DoD’s Small Spacecraft Coordination Activity (SSCA) and NASA’s Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute (S3VI), provide forums for the commercial community to interact with government and academic developers to identify needed capabilities for SmallSat science missions. NASA’s Small Spacecraft Coordination Group (SSCG) and DoD’s SSCA also provide internal coordination functions within their agencies to support decision-making on how New Space activities can enable their scientific and defense-related programs.

Technology Pipeline Development

The enhancement of the SmallSat technology development pipeline may be supported via a number of approaches. The first and most traditional model is to embed technology development resources into existing programs of record. This involves setting aside some amount of resources to enable targeted investments in those technologies that are specifically important to that program.

The second and most targeted approach is direct investment from end users such as military and civil space organizations. For instance, the AFRL funds SBIR and SSTR research and technology development opportunities through the AFWERX program. Similarly, the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) funds and operates the Small Spacecraft Technology Program (SSTP) to create, mature, and demonstrate needed technologies for NASA’s

TABLE 2.2 Commercial Capability Trends and Development Needs Forecast for Infrastructure-Related Topics Supporting SmallSat Mission Development

NOTES: This table identifies areas where commercial development is needed to benefit government science mission capability and provides a time frame for when that capability could be developed and used. Although it categorizes and indicates that infrastructure exists to support the range of capabilities for mission development from spacecraft manufacturing through cloud-based architecture for data management, all of these capabilities need continued enhancement over the next 5–10 years to enable a robust commercial ecosystem to reduce the time from concept development to operations and data return. Many of these capabilities, spanning technology, infrastructure, and processes, are on track to be available as fully vetted commercial services within 5 years, while others may need 5–10 years to come to full fruition.

SmallSat science and exploration missions. SMD also sponsors multiple competed technology programs for mission and instrument development on the order of $100 million annually. Last, other governmental agencies participate in SmallSats use mechanisms like the SBIR programs to seed and mature SmallSat Technologies.

A third, less direct, but very important means of technology investment for SmallSats comes in the form of dual-use technologies. For instance, the telecommunications industry invests billions of dollars annually to create small, low-powered, yet highly capable electronic devices and sensors. Many devices and system elements, such as computer processors, are naturally radiation tolerant and, with appropriate radiation test methodologies, have the potential for dual-use in space applications. The automotive and biomedical industries produce highly reliable, robust systems, which can also be similarly tested and adapted to SmallSat systems. Additionally, SmallSats are utilizing cameras, IMUs, altimeters, processors and so on derived from cell phone technologies. The gaming industry is constantly improving the speed of processors that can be used to support artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) software applications on SmallSats, enabling potentially new and unique mission concepts with greater capabilities than currently available. Owing to the rapid pace of technology development and the large number of agencies and organizations involved, duplication of efforts is common. Therefore, in order to achieve coordination and oversight, a better method of communication between government procurement agencies could

prove beneficial for impacting acquisition strategies, development of best practices, sharing of acquisition mechanisms, and other areas.

Standards Development

Standards have been highly instrumental in enabling the SmallSat revolution. For instance, the invention of the Poly Picosat Orbital Deployer (PPOD) allows CubeSats to be manifested and deployed from a wide number of launch vehicles. The PPOD provides known, stable interfaces to both the spacecraft and the launch vehicle. It has extensive testing and operations campaigns behind it, and it is now considered a safe, low-risk system for accommodating CubeSats. The standard is published and widely available for all developers and designers to reference, and it has been adopted by many in the SmallSat community. Similar standards could be developed for areas like orbital safety and the minimization of light pollution for astronomers from orbiting spacecraft. However, the successful adoption of these standards hinges on how they are created. Top-down dictates are generally considered less likely to find widespread acceptance and use versus those developed by end users and then shared with the community. In other cases, an organic standards process is not possible and government involvement will be required.

One example of standards applied to the development and procurement of complex space systems by DoD is a concept called the Evolutionary Acquisition for Space Efficiency (EASE).¹⁴ This concept was introduced by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in 2012 to deal with the high cost of satellites but, also, to foster innovation in satellite acquisition. EASE was adopted by Congress as a means of allowing DoD to acquire expensive satellite systems through fixed price, block buys spread over multiple years rather than through single-year procurements that had become prohibitively expensive. An important part of the EASE concept was the addition of a Capability and Affordability Improvement Program (CAIP) in the satellite program’s budget. CAIP provided funding for the acquisition of new, enhanced components to be added to the satellite systems for each launch, nominally every 2 years. Any company could compete for CAIP funding. The contract award for the core system required the industry producer to share its integration standards, enabling others to design components and sensors to be added to the original satellite system.

This CAIP concept could also be extended beyond a core satellite system to an entire constellation. Overarching integration standards would allow all systems launched for a particular mission to integrate their operations into a coherent “whole.” Another benefit of broader integration standards would be for data integration. Today, each satellite system provides data for its specific system’s ground processing, making it challenging to integrate the information across a large number of systems. If data standards could be introduced, this data integration process would be much easier and would better enable new data analytic techniques such as machine learning. In this case, government would either have to develop these standards or, as done with EASE, contract the standards development out to industry as part of their task.

Not all areas benefit from standardization. Part of the success of standards is identifying the key technological areas that will benefit and enable the advancement and usage of small satellites. Blanket adoption of standards across all systems could stifle innovation, meaning that collaboration between government and industry is necessary to determine which areas would benefit the most from standardization. The government can help facilitate the usage of standards by incentives to industry and including them in contractual agreements for future procurements. A clear value proposition to support standards needs to be made for commercial industry to adopt and incorporate them into existing and future products or services.

Technology and manufacturing standards are typically accomplished by professional societies through organizing groups of stakeholder representatives. Societies like the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) can be encouraged to organize industry groups to first identify areas and systems that would benefit from standards and then to proceed with their formulation. The government can also develop guidelines for using those standards in procurement practices.

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¹⁴ See AcqNotes, “Evolutionary Acquisition for Space Efficiency (EASE),” https://acqnotes.com/acqnote/careerfields/evolutionaryacquisition-space-efficiency-ease.

Another key element of standards lies in their communication and promulgation. Standards need to be readily available to existing and new entrants, and they need to also include a process for testing, updating and improvement as situations and needs evolve. The wide distribution of standards will assist equal access to the space technology marketplace. Similarly, where standards are needed but not available, a well-trusted, independent group needs to be identified to coordinate and facilitate new standards creation and disseminations.

BEST PRACTICES AND LESSONS LEARNED

The nature of New Space allows for a large number of new entrants to contribute and participate in space operations using SmallSat platforms. However, in contrast to larger, more established aerospace organizations, these new entrants usually do not have the advantage of depth and experience to guide them as they develop their missions. Therefore, the SmallSat community tends to be a more collaborative one. To encourage more collaboration, lessons learned along with best practices need to be identified, vetted, and clearly communicated throughout the community. This can be achieved through activities and organizations such as NASA’s Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute,¹⁵ which provides a number of resources, tools, and lessons learned to the community.

Opportunities to collaborate across organizational boundaries is another way for new entrants to quickly benefit from the experiences of others, for example, NASA has been actively collaborating with the U.S. Space Force, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and NOAA. Barriers to such collaborations need to be minimized to the extent possible, and collaborations need to be encouraged and rewarded. Collaboration environments and tools also need to be provided and made available to assist with this goal.

Last, there exist benefits and challenges in adoption of new business models to best leverage SmallSat commercialization and partnerships. While Figure 2.6 highlights the risk trade in maturing mission development based on the degree of commercialization and partnerships, Chapter 5 will highlight how specific commercial capabilities across services, mission operations, technology development, and data-buys may benefit government users pending the details of how various business arrangements are structured. Assessment of these risks, in the context of the state of technology development enabling these capabilities, and their forecasted readiness over a period of years, as shown in Table 2.2, directly impact how government users could phase in appropriate technologies and capabilities to meet mission objectives. Thus, the maturation rate of these capabilities will also impact decision-making regarding development and readiness/adoption of HSA. As will be described in subsequent sections, HSA could, under appropriate contract mechanisms, also serve as an enabling capability to provide standardized services for government mission development across a variety of commercial services.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

CONCLUSION: The commercial space industry’s tremendous growth and rapid evolution have generated high-profile successes, and signs indicate that this trend will continue to accelerate. The U.S. government, including traditional governmental space users, could benefit greatly from less traditional relationships, such as public–private partnerships, that enable the adoption of industry’s technology and volume manufacturing capabilities.

RECOMMENDATION: The U.S. government should encourage the development of public–private partnerships, potentially including anchor tenancies, to promote a new national space ecosystem supportive of industry, government, and academic objectives.

CONCLUSION: Existing interoperability standards are primarily driven by traditional system constructs and impede the government’s access to flexible and adaptable commercial services. The U.S. government and commercial stakeholders will increasingly rely more heavily upon integrated commercial services and advancing standards to establish a broad-based ecosystem, enabling smoother transition paths among spacecraft development, payload integration, test, launch services, operations management, and data product production. Development and adoption

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¹⁵ NASA, “Small Spacecraft Virtual Institute,” updated May 26, 2022, See https://www.nasa.gov/smallsat-institute.

of interoperability standards driven by unique commercial New Space needs and design practices for key systems will increase competition and enable efficient execution and management for a broad range of space mission and operational needs for current and future government users.

RECOMMENDATION: Key systems—those most appropriate for standards—should be jointly developed and actively managed to support the New Space public–private partnerships in ways that promote the greatest acceptance and usage on future systems. Standards and best practices could be developed within organizations such as the Air Force Research Laboratory’s AFWERX, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute, and the Small Payload Rideshare Association to facilitate the adoption of New Space business product capabilities.

CONCLUSION: A coordinated government effort to promote and oversee existing government programs, together with the exploitation of dual-use technologies (evolving out of the automotive, medical, gaming, and other industries), could enhance the existing technology pipeline and benefit all national space activities. The Air Force Research Laboratory’s AFWERX, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Small Spacecraft Technology Program, the government’s Small Business Innovative Research program, and the government’s Small Business Technology Transfer program are the appropriate venues for such technology infusion and demonstration.

RECOMMENDATION: The Office of Naval Research should take full advantage of opportunities for the infusion of dual-use technologies deriving from participation in existing government technology development programs such as the Air Force Research Laboratory’s AFWERX, the Small Spacecraft Technology Program, the government’s Small Business Innovative Research program, and the government’s Small Business Technology Transfer program.

CONCLUSION: The rapid expansion of space systems and operations knowledge throughout the commercial space industry provides numerous opportunities for the Hybrid Space Architecture and other U.S. government space initiatives. Clearly stated standards and best practices, in conjunction with procurement mechanisms that address and accelerate decision speed, address mission risk, and align incentives, would allow efficient U.S. government access to these new capabilities. Procurement mechanisms tailored to commercial business models could further support responsive schedules from initiative inception to on-orbit capability.

RECOMMENDATION: U.S. government procurement mechanisms should be tailored to embrace evolving commercial practices and appropriate standards to address and accelerate decision speed, management of mission risk, and alignment of incentives to rapidly enable government space initiatives.