WASHINGTON -- In an effort to reduce risk in developing operational spy satellites, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has started a new program that will use tiny satellites, known as cubesats, as in-space test platforms for promising new technologies.

 

Last year, the spy satellite agency established a cubesat program office dedicated to small satellites weighing between 1 and 5 kilograms each. Located within the NRO's Advanced Systems and Technology division, the new Colony Program Office has 12 cubesats in production this year and plans to purchase between 20 and 50 additional cubesats at roughly $250,000 each over a two-year period beginning in 2010.

 

U.S. Air Force Maj. David "Dutch" Shultz, who heads the new Colony Program Office, told Space News Aug. 6 that the NRO sees the potential for cubesats to prove advanced technologies on orbit more quickly and affordably than on larger platforms. He also said the agency is making bulk purchases of the standardized satellite buses — which measure 10 centimeters on a side — and opening the buys to other government agencies, an acquisition approach that will save time and money in developing new technologies and mission capabilities for integration on a much larger scale.

 

"Part of our hope in having a number of cubesats being built and launched every year is that it will allow some of those technologies to operate on-orbit and achieve that level of confidence early on, before those things get built into big programs," Shultz said.

 

Last year House lawmakers issued a study, dubbed the "Report on Challenges and Recommendations for United States Overhead Architecture," which called on the Defense Department to conduct more research and development (R&D) on programs in advance of awarding prime contracts.

 

"There needs to be more money and more time spent in the R&D phase before we get to the manufacturing phase," Rep. C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger (D-Md.), chairman of the House Intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence and one of the report's principal authors, said in a July 14 interview. "You must have the R&D before you get to the manufacturing point."

 

In addition to R&D demonstrations, Shultz said the NRO cubesats could be used to validate new missions and capabilities.

 

"That really involves a cubesat delivering some kind of capability to the warfighter and the warfighter being interested enough in growing that capability, which may or may not involve cubesats, into a mission," he said.

 

Among the technologies and capabilities targeted for early NRO cubesat demonstrations are hyperspectral sensors, standardized attitude control systems, radio-frequency modules and so-called structureless antenna arrays, according to NRO briefing documents.

 

Shultz said the agency has issued a draft request for proposals for between 20 and 50 cubesats to be funded at approximately $250,000 each over a two-year period beginning in 2010, and that a final solicitation is due out later this August. Shultz said he hopes other agencies will participate in the bulk cubesat buy.

 

"It's an opportunity we've offered to any other agency, so that within our ceiling of 50, other agencies could purchase some of them," he said. "It's those bulk-buy discounts and the cost of building the seventh satellite versus the cost of building a single satellite that give you those economies of scale."

 

The NRO anticipates its first cubesat launch in 2010. Shultz said the agency hopes to use NASA rockets equipped with Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployers (P-PODs), the standardized deployment system for cubesats, as well as U.S. Defense Department launchers.

 

"We are willing to leverage any U.S. launch opportunity, including NASA, [the Defense Department] and commercial launch providers through the NRO's Office of Space Launch," he said. "With NASA, we're trying to get on their boosters, because the P-POD has been qualified on those launchers, and it's easier than qualifying something new to fly on a mission."

 

Shultz said the NRO bought its first batch of 12 cubesat platforms, or buses, from San Francisco-based Pumpkin Inc. The NRO distributed the structures to other Defense Department or federal agency partners and universities to develop and integrate a variety of payloads.

 

Schultz said buying cubesats in bulk brings the unit cost down for everyone, enabling experiments that otherwise might not get funded.

 

"By having less cost on the bus, you can put more money in the payload, which in our case means we can work on more payload options simultaneously, which means more universities or companies are working on a technology," he said. "It may be a small technology effort that that school or company has, but it would be zero if we're putting another $100,000 or $200,000 into the cubesat itself."

 

Shultz said the office hopes to launch 15 cubesats each year.

 

"We hope we can start working what we call the cubesat pipeline to create regular opportunities on a large number of vehicles," he said. "Lots of universities have cubesats, where they've bought Pumpkin buses themselves, but they often struggle to find a launch opportunity."

 

Shultz said that while the interagency acquisition approach appears promising, it is too early to anticipate even larger-quantity purchases of cubesats.

 

"We have to prove we can usefully employ 20 to 50 cubesats and generate results or some kind of return for folks before anybody will commit to making it grow in the out-years," he said.