Valuing New Earth Observation Missions for System Architecture Trade-Studies

New earth observation missions are being implemented and conceptualized with architectures employing multiple spacecraft and novel observing strategies that combine distributed, multi-platform systems. These new types of missions are enabling earth observation with multi-angular, multi-spectral data acquisition at high resolution and high revisit frequencies. The architectural choices have grown exponentially in such distributed systems, and there is a need for quantitative measures, that go beyond cost estimation, and assess value (or scientific return) over a mission's operational life-cycle. Here, we formulate a novel metric, Net Architecture Value (NAV), that can be used in early stage conceptual mission design and architecture trade studies. We propose that useful data of adequate quality, obtained over regions of interest, acquired by a system over its lifetime can be used as a proxy measure of value. We demonstrate the application of this approach for a distributed space mission.