A Systems Model for Computation, Communication, Command and Control (C4) in a Spacecraft or Satellite Cluster

A Computation, Communication, Command and Control (C4) model is proposed for the scenario of a space-bourn remote sensing application involving a spacecraft or satellite cluster. This paper considers the distributed processing nature of such an application together with the highly dynamic free space optical interconnection network deployed for communications. The C4 model provides for a unified and comprehensive modeling of these four aspects. An overview of the C4 model including its sub models is presented in this paper. A simulation is also briefly described.