A hierarchical evaluation of space-based systems performance

Space-based systems (SBS) technology has been advancing rapidly in terms of capability, affordability, size, and reliability. As in the commercial sector, defence and military institutions are looking to improve their space capabilities by increasing the number of smaller, more affordable, and more capable satellites that are being put into service. The military is looking to extend these capabilities at the strategic level, the operational and tactical levels. Increasing the number of satellites inevitably increases the complexity of planning for and operating the resulting constellations. Therefore, the benefit of employing more satellites must be evaluated not only to justify the increase in complexity, but also to show the significant improvements that can be achieved. In this paper, we propose a method to evaluate the performance and role of different SBS within the context of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). An example is also given to demonstrate how different numbers of SBS can improve baseline ISR capabilities.