Looking into Future - Systems Engineering of Microsatellites

Space age began with the launch of Sputnik-1 in 1957, by the Soviet Union. Initially, the spacecraft, especially the western ones, were rather small due to limited capabilities of the launch vehicles. With the increasing capabilities of rocketry in the US and USSR, the limitation was soon a part of history. From 1970s, several-thousands-kilograms satellites have been placed in orbits ranging from LEOs to GEOs and to interplanetary orbits. These large satellites have been the major payloads of launch vehicles until the very last years of the Cold War, the so-called “Super-power, government-only space era”. During the last two decades, however, there has been an ever-increasing interest within the private sectors in developed countries and, also, space agencies of developing countries to contribute to and take advantage of space market. It must be reminded that large satellites are not appropriate means to establish the required hardware-/software-expertise and infrastructure. Simply, the private sector is not able to afford the huge costs of large satellites and its immense complexity. This also holds true for government-funded project in many developing and third-world countries. Thus, most countries and space agencies have adopted microsatellite projects in order to initialize their space policy in order to obtain, establish and benefit from the rich space revenue. Thus, a “government/private-sector era” has been already initiated and almost established. In this methodology, microsatellites have served as “path-finders”, in order to pave the way of many nations and societies (top-class universities in developed countries, space-agencies in developing countries and so on) to obtain the space technology. In the space literature of the last two decades, microsatellites have been addressed as “hands-on experience” to facilitate consolidation of space technology in order to implement some “actual large satellite” programs. Microsatellites in the next decades, however, will be employed not only as “path-finders” and/or “hands-on experience” warm-ups, but also as actual projects with considerable financial Return on Investment (ROI). This requires fundamental reconsideration of system-level characteristics of microsatellite projects, such as mission definition, subsystem performance requirements, construction, test, launch and post-launch operations. The preceding issues are addressed in this chapter.