Tradeoffs in Design-to-Budget projects

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating a method to cope with tradeoffs in Design-to-Budget projects. It focuses only on mission operations and does not consider aspects related to spacecraft design, launcher or insurance. The possible tradeoffs depend upon different criteria (e.g. system availability, operational risk), whose relative importance is in turn imposed by the mission characteristics (e.g. recurring satellite routine operations, human spaceflight, LEOP). A methodology, issued from the optimization field, is first defined in order to evaluate the impact of these tradeoffs on the considered criteria. The methodology allows taking the mission characteristics into account and the allocated budget is modeled as a constraint of the problem. A list of cost reduction measures is then produced, supported by GSOC experience or the existing literature, together with an assessment of their impact on the criteria. Finally the methodology is applied in relation with a budget level to find out which cost reduction measures would satisfy the budget constraint and which criteria would be impacted. © 2012 by DLR.