Battle Damage Assessment: Space Mission Design Process Example

Mission Statement Warfighters need near real-time battlefield recon to conduct bomb damage assessment following tactical sorties to redirect air resources as needed to complete operational missions Air recon missions face too many hazards to perform the assessment safely

The Mission Pre-strike Post Strike

The Mission

Step 1: Define Mission Objective(s) Primary: To detect and assess battle damage anywhere in the world in near real-time Secondary: To provide surveillance capabilities to the DoD that will verify treaty compliance Secondary: To provide damage assessment of natural disasters to relief agencies throughout the world

Step 2: Preliminary Mission Requirements and Constraints Wavelength Range: 0.6 – 1  m Resolution: 5 m Swath Width: 200 km Pointing Stability: 1 km Latitude Coverage: ± 90° Satellite Lifetime: 5 years Reliability: 95% Operational Availability Coverage: 70% with 2 hr maximum gap

Resolution

Swath Width

Pointing Stability

Step 2: Preliminary Mission Requirements and Constraints Months to IOC: 42 months Total Budget: $241,000,000 All DoD acquisitions will follow DoD 5000 standards (regulation) System must communicate with existing air, ground and sea assets via the JWICS architecture (external interface) These constraints can produce derived requirements…

Step 2: Preliminary Mission Requirements and Constraints Operations: Shriever AFB, CO Mission Ops: $10,000,000 / year Existing G/S to be used G/S Reciever Bandwidth: 10 MHz S Band Downlink: 2.3 GHz

Step 3: Alternative Mission Concepts Large constellation (10-15 satellites) of small satellites in low-Earth orbit Medium constellation (5-7 satellites) of large satellites in low- to medium-Earth orbit Small constellation (3 satellites) of very large geosynchronous satellites Near space assets (lighter than air) in the Stratosphere

Step 3: Alternative Mission Concepts On-board data compression scheme for images Full raw data transmission Send data directly to commanders in the field Send data to Pentagon (or some other central location) for analysis