Call for Papers for Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets Special Issue on "Advances in Federated and Fractionated Satellite Systems" Written 16 October 2017

Federated and Fractionated satellite systems (FSS) are new concepts in space systems design aiming at creating a commercial cloud-computing environment to enable sharing and trading of in-space resources between spacecraft. Federated satellites exchange resources such as link capacity, processing capability and storage capacity. This exchange improves the efficiency utilization of spacecraft resources and makes use of unallocated resource margins of participating missions. In a commercial perspective, the federated satellite systems concept allows the creation of new markets of in-space resources, among other benefits in spacecraft cost, performance, and reliability. Researchers started to explore benefits and costs of a federated approach to spacecraft design, and several research avenues have just started opening in this field.

On the occasion of the Fifth International Federated Satellite Systems Workshop, that takes place on 2-3 November 2017 at ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse, France, the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets is launching a  special issue on Advances in Federated and Fractionated Satellite Systems. This special issue aims at reporting on the latest research results on the underlying concepts of FSS.

Topics of interest to the special issue include, but are not limited to:

• Heterogeneous spacecraft networks
• Distributed space systems
• Distributed decision making and spacecraft cooperation
• Satellite Distributed processing
• Inter-satellite-link payloads
• Optical space communications
• Small satellite distributed and collaborative networks
• Space communication protocols development and standardization
• Free-space wireless power transmission
• Fractionated spacecraft
• Plug and play space hardware
• Emerging space network concepts
• Cloud computing concept transfer
• Resource management under uncertainty and network scheduling
• Advanced space system concepts and architectures
• Business case studies based on space infrastructures
• Small satellite distributed and collaborative networks
• Concurrent engineering approaches to federated systems design

Papers of up to ten pages describing research and concepts related to the mentioned topics will be considered. Author information, including the journal scope, guidelines for style and format, and how to submit your manuscript can be found on the journal website in Aerospace Research Central https://arc.aiaa.org/loi/jsr.

Guest Editors: Prof. R.A. Vingerhoeds (ISAE-SUPAERO) and Prof. A. Golkar (Skoltech)