Deployment Strategies for a Financially Viable Remote Sensing Constellation

Traditional space-based remote sensing architectures are characterized by small quantities of large, monolithic, and expensive satellites. In recent years, constellations of CubeSats have emerged as a competitive challenge to this approach. These large, coordinated deployments of miniaturized spacecraft trade the higher resolution payloads of large satellites for other benefits such as faster revisit times, larger coverage, and lower unit costs. Despite these benefits, an Earth-imaging CubeSat constellation is a complex engineering undertaking not without significant technical and financial risk. This paper investigates the strategic decisions that make for a successful commercial remote sensing constellation. A system model is developed to capture the impact of architectural and business decisions, along with external economic and technical uncertainties, which impact the success of the venture, as measured by Net Present Value (NPV). The system model is implemented for two architectural approaches. The first is a “rigid strategy” where business decisions and cost commitments are made at the outset of the project, when best guesses for the realization of uncertain parameters are required. The second architectural approach is a “flexible strategy” which leverages the physically and temporally distributed deployment of a small satellite constellation to make responsive decisions as the future unfolds and uncertainties are better understood. It is shown that employing flexible strategies can yield up to 30% increases in average NPV, nearly double maximum expected NPV, and improve Value at Risk (VAR) figures by as much 60% over a rigid strategy. This work confirms that commercial success of a remote-sensing constellation is as dependent on technical decisions as on the realization of an uncertain future. Thus, the most prudent course of action is to understand these uncertainties and adopt a reactive and flexible deployment strategy.