Utility as applied to small satellite risk based decision-making

Small satellites bring new capabilities to space-based missions. They offer users the capability of having less expensive satellites that may provide users with information as single entities or as constellations. The ability to have a satellite that may be launched for opportunistic missions must be balanced against the risks associated with the more COTS based components often used in such satellites. However, the savings achieved by using COTS can very quickly be offset by the expense of validating the reliability of the components using conventional larger satellite concepts. Therefore, there needs to be a new paradigm that assesses risk for small satellites that is congruent with the costs and responsiveness of small satellites. This paper proposes the use of the economic quantity of utility as this measure.