Cost - Benefit Analysis of a Notational Fractionated SATCOM

The basic functions of a typical satellite, distilled to their quintessence, include only the absorption, processing, and subsequent re-radiation of photons. To this end, spacecraft components need only be able to exchange energy – which tends to be dichotomized into power and information – and transmit the occasional force or torque. Perfectly adequate and efficient mechanisms for accomplishing both of these tasks without resorting to a connecting solid structure exist.i Perhaps the most philosophically satisfying consequent view of a spacecraft is as a cloud of microstructural components – “pixie dust” – which may or may not be molecularly bonded to each other, contingent only on consideration of some appropriate overall system measure of merit. It is the aim of this analysis to construct such a measure of merit, and to assess its implication for the optimality of various architectures.