DARPA Funds Development on Modular Satellite Network 51
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by
Soulskill
from the we-need-more-of-a-challenge-when-shooting-them-down dept.
from the we-need-more-of-a-challenge-when-shooting-them-down dept.
coondoggie points out a Networkworld story about plans for modular satellite technology which is intended to replace modern, "monolithic" devices. The project hopes to solve issues of scalability and reliability by separating the typical satellite systems and allowing the different modules to change function when necessary. Quoting:
"According to DARPA such a virtual satellite effectively constitutes a "bus in the sky" - wherein customers need only provide and deploy a payload module suited to their immediate mission need, with the supporting features supplied by a global network of infrastructure modules already resident on-orbit and at critical ground locations. In addition, there can be sharing of resources between various "spacecraft" that are within sufficient range for communication. DARPA said ... within the F6 network all subsystems and payloads can be treated like a uniquely addressable computing peripheral or network device. Such an approach can provide a long sought after "plug-n-play" capability, according to the agency."
Modular hacking (Score:1, Interesting)
However, create a modular system, and suddenly any satellite using a compomised module can be hacked. Oh, and did we mention that the Government will be providing the modules? Hellooooo... Clipper Chip, anyone?
Sounds like it has been done before. (Score:3, Interesting)
Robustness (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a *really good reason* which is given in the article: defence against anti-satellite weapons.
Much like 'Internet': a decentralised system is much more robust than a centralised one..
Fault or attack tolerence? (Score:3, Interesting)
To your point, whether or not they'd be more effective / capable is a question that maybe somebody here could answer? Could the same priciple apply as is used by astronomers, for both optical and radio telecopes, whereby multiple small detectors substitute for one big one? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array [wikipedia.org]). Would also reduce the risk of losing one big spy sat at launch, as recently happened. (But presumably it was big because it needed to be?)
Finally, more satellites could perhaps be useful for tactical operations, since there'd be less time to wait for the next pass before getting a view of the area of interest. Harder for bad people, (and good), to avoid too - the times of passing sats are widely documented on the 'net, and Govs and others are known to time their sensitive activties to avoid being caught.