Orbital Federates

Abstract

Downlink capacity is one of the biggest limitations of current Earth observing space missions. Most spacecraft pass over their dedicated ground stations infrequently and only for short durations. A Federated Satellite System (FSS) is a distributed space system concept where independent operators of spacecraft have the option to lease excess capacity to and from each other. FSS is enabled by inter-satellite links and standardized protocols for on-orbit data exchange. A key challenge in implementing a FSS deals with its decentralized nature. A federated system can be represented as a Stag Hunt game with two Nash equilibria: a risk dominant one where each player acts independently (e.g. current space systems) and a payoff dominant one where players collaborate to achieve a common goal. Design of a FSS deals with establishing the social contracts to encourage the desired collective behavior. Orbital Federates is a simplified game to model space system operations and study collaborative (and non-collaborative) behaviors in a FSS.

Abstract/Paper

Authors: P. Grogan (Stevens)