A promising -- but pricey and risky -- effort to develop formation-flying satellites has been grounded by the fringe-science Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But key components of the Future, Fast, Flexible, Fractionated Free-Flying Spacecraft, or System F6, could return to orbit as part of other programs.
Space News broke the story of F6's cancellation today. Brad Tousley, the new director of Darpa's Tactical Technology Office, told the trade publication he killed off the program after a recent review of research programs. Tousley told Space News he based his decision on schedule delays, technical and management problems and the Pentagon's lack of interest in F6.
Begun in 2006, F6 was meant to break up today's big, complex and monolithic military satellites, one of which usually handles several tasks simultaneously -- surveillance and communication and self-defense, for instance. Brian Weeden, a space expert with the Colorado-based Secure World Foundation, calls this the "battleship" approach to military operations in space.
By contrast, an "aggregated" F6 spacecraft would have included several miniature satellites, each performing a single task. The gaggle of tiny sats would orbit the Earth in close formation, wirelessly swapping data and power. If one part got damaged or destroyed, the other parts would shift formation and take over its tasks. "Such architecture enhances the adaptability and survivability of space systems, while shortening development timelines and reducing the barrier-to-entry for participation in the national security space industry," Darpa noted.
Ideally, F6 would have led to better, tougher and cheaper spacecraft, Weeden says. "From a protection standpoint, if all your stuff is integrated on one giant satellite, that satellite is a sitting duck that cannot protect itself from kinetic attacks," Weeden tells Danger Room. "By integrating all your things into one satellite, you also make the acquisition of satellites more complicated ... you can't afford a lot of them."
But F6 wasn't cheap, either. Costing some $200 million since 2007, it consistently accounted for around a quarter of the science agency's annual space budget.
Plus, F6 was badly managed. In 2009, Darpa awarded Virginia-based Orbital bet365体育赛事s a $75-million contract to oversee F6 development, but soon cancelled the contract. Instead, a wide range of small companies were paid to each develop one small part of the F6 architecture -- almost as though Darpa believed the program structure should echo the design of the aggregated spacecraft itself. In his comments to Space News, Tousley seemed baffled by the agency's approach.
Worst of all, the military never seemed terribly interested in F6. The Air Force and other military branches have their initiatives for developing smaller, cheaper spacecraft. Maybe they didn't think they needed another one.
The good news for F6 is that its technology won't all go to waste. The software, in particular, could find applications in other efforts. Weeden says one likely candidate is Darpa's own Phoenix program, which is working on a new satellite capable of harvesting bits and pieces of old, defunct spacecraft to create functional, zombie-like hybrids that, like F6, would orbit in groups.
In that sense, F6 might have been killed off, but its ideas are still very much alive.
