Distinguishing Attributes for the Operationally Responsive Space Paradigm

The value-centric perspective of operationally responsive space (ORS) places emphasis on meeting the needs of stakeholders in a timely and effective manner. While ongoing technology developments for spacecraft standardization and rapid launch as well as efforts to develop enabling concepts of operations, tactics, and procedures support the advancement of an ORS paradigm, little work has been completed to evaluate responsive architectures using value-based design methods. To address this gap, Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration (MATE), a conceptual design methodology that applies decision theory to model and simulation-based design, is applied to the assessment of ORS and “big space” approaches for a notional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission. Decoupling the design from the need through tradespace exploration, MATE is both a solution-generating as well as a decision-making framework. The focus in this paper is on the front-end of the MATE process—eliciting preferences from system stakeholders, including decision makers that have significant influence over the allocation of resources in a development effort. These preferences are captured in a multiattribute utility function for guiding subsequent tradespace exploration. After enumerating both traditional and responsive attributes for a notional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission, the implications of the expanded set of attributes for the MATE modeling architecture are discussed. A model for incorporating schedule as an independent variable within tradespace studies is proposed, as is future work on the identification of mission areas and operational contexts suitable to the ORS paradigm. Overall, the key contribution of the paper is setting up the application of a value-centric methodology for the objective assessment of operationally responsive architectures.