Value-Centric Design Methodologies for Fractionated Spacecraft: Progress Summary from Phase I of the DARPA System F6 Program

One of the most ambitious efforts in value-centric design of a military aerospace system undertaken to date has been the parallel development by four performer teams, headlined by major space industry primes, of design tools for fractionated space architectures under DARPA's System F6 program. The goal of the System F6 program is to replace traditional, highly-integrated, monolithic satellites with wirelessly-networked clusters of heterogeneous modules incorporating the various payload and infrastructure functions. Such fractionated architectures can deliver a comparable or greater mission capability than monolithic satellites, but with significantly enhanced flexibility and robustness. In order to design an optimal fractionated architecture, the potential cost penalties due to the overhead of such a design must be balanced against the value enhancement due to improved flexibility and robustness.