We always love a good technology story—especially one where the underdog beats out the big dog.  Here’s a story that has it all:  cryptic acronyms, advanced technology, spaceflight, and a win by the little guy against three of the largest dogs in the neighborhood.

Defense Industry Daily recently reported that a team led by Orbital Sciences was awarded (on December 4, 2009) the Phase 2 System F6 contract—a $75 million award in which Orbital beat Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman.  In February 2008, the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) awarded the four teams a Phase 1 contract to develop key technologies, develop a system design, develop “an innovative analytical approach using econometric tools,” and develop an “evolved hardware-in-the-loop test-bed … using a cluster of networked computers.”  Orbital Sciences’ approach was selected to proceed onto Phase 2.

What is the System F6 concept? The six ‘F’s” are Future Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying Spacecraft. According to DARPA, the program—

… intends to demonstrate that a traditional, large, monolithic satellite can be replaced by a group of smaller, individually launched, wirelessly networked and cluster-flown spacecraft modules. Each ‘fractionated’ module can contribute a unique capability to the rest of the network, such as computing, ground communications, or payload functionality. The ultimate goal of the program is to launch a fractionated spacecraft system and demonstrate it in orbit in approximately four years.

A 2008 DARPA press release announces—

We see many benefits to fractionation. Fractionation provides the flexibility to launch individual payloads when they are ready so that an otherwise complex, multi-payload program isn’t delayed. It diversifies risk during launch by not putting all of our eggs into one basket, greatly improves robustness to attack, and provides the capability to rapidly replace a failed component without needing complex in-orbit servicing. And we have the potential to take advantage of Moore’s law by frequently upgrading on-orbit computing resources using relatively small modules, as opposed to waiting decades until we replace the entire spacecraft. The F6 architecture will demonstrate an approach that will enable us to do these types of crucial space activities in the future, and maybe even some incredible things we haven’t even begun to consider.

As the DID article explains, “In the next phase of the System F6 program, Orbital will be responsible for the detailed design and ground testing of the new technologies, architectures and programmatic concepts required for the System F6. These include wireless data communications, cluster flight operations, distributed spacecraft computing systems, rapidly relocatable ground systems, and value-centric design methodologies. DARPA is hoping for a planned flight demonstration in 2013.”

The December 2009 DARPA press release likens the development of fractionated spacecraft to the evolution of “monolithic mainframe computers … to ever-smaller ubiquitously networked systems … changing how computing is used.”  The System F6 is intended to demonstrate the benefits of the new approach, including “rapid defensive cluster scatter and re-gather maneuvers.”

One key feature of the Phase 2 efforts is the creation of an “F6 Developer’s Kit,” which will be “distributed under an open-source license, which will include definitions and reference implementation of all interfaces necessary to develop a new module for an F6 cluster, with source code, binaries, and documentation for the resource-sharing middleware and cluster flight algorithms.”

As the DARPA press release concludes, “We are looking at dramatically decreasing the space industry’s barrier to entry and also radically simplifying the way large space systems are integrated and tested.”

The winning Orbital Sciences team included: IBM, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Georgia Institute of Technology, SpaceDev, and Aurora Flight Sciences. We have written about SpaceDev (a subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corporation or SNC) before, noting that SpaceDev was a leader in “innovative space technology” with “proven space products in its portfolio.”  SNC acquired SpaceDev for $38 million in December, 2008 and—roughly a year later—and has seen its bet pay-off nicely in this DARPA award.

We also note that Aurora Flight Sciences was a team member of three of the four competing teams. This smallish (300 person) privately owned corporation reported roughly $50 million in annual sales.  We’ll be keeping an eye on this rapidly emerging player.