Valuation of On-Orbit Servicing in Proliferated Low-Earth Orbit Constellations

Abstract

On-orbit servicing (OOS) presents new opportunities for refueling, inspection, repair, maintenance, and upgrade of spacecraft (s/c). OOS is a significant area of need for future space growth, enabled by the maturation of technology and the economic prospects. This congestion is leading s/c operators to explore how they can leverage OOS. OOS missions for s/c in geostationary orbit (GEO) are currently underway. This is being driven by the closure of the business case for refueling long lived monolithic chemically propelled GEO assets. However, there are currently no plans for OOS of low-earth orbit (LEO) s/c, aside from technology demonstrations, because of their shorter design life and lower cost. It will become particularly important to enable the servicing of LEO s/c as the industry shifts its focus towards LEO. Designing OOS systems for LEO constellations differs from that of GEO based systems, this difference is attributed to LEO’s proliferation of satellites, environmental effects (J2 nodal precession, drag), and different constellation patterns. Satellite constellations in LEO are becoming more distributed due to increased access, distributed risk, flexibility, and cost. OOS of s/c may enable the reduction of requirements on subsystems such as safety and the need for redundancy. These requirement reductions will enable lower risks, lower costs, and increased system resilience. This paper analyzes the benefits of OOS in proliferated LEO constellations. Several OOS system architectures are modeled; in each system architecture the model will vary qualities such as number of servicers, altitudes, and orbital maneuvers. The objective of the model will be to optimize for cost, time, and utility to generate a tradespace for an OOS system architecture.