Mission-Focused Assessments of Space Constellations and Architecture
IDA develops and refines modeling and simulation to enhance, simulation tools to assess the risk, resiliency, and effectiveness of satellite mega-constellations and space architectures against threat systems.
SERPENS modeling tool
The Space Environment Risk Prediction by Evaluating Numerical Simulation (SERPENS) tool models orbital dynamics, predicts conjunctions, simulates collision avoidance maneuvers, and evaluates mission performance effects. The tool supports a wide range of space mission modeling needs, including constellation design, sensor coverage and measurement quality, maneuver planning, and threat analysis.DISCO Black modeling tool
Our DISCO Black modeling tool dynamically replicates the effects from a high-altitude nuclear event, providing a clear understanding of how a post-nuclear burst environment affects all space systems. DISCO Black gives IDA the ability to analyze satellite survivability, dynamic ground coverage, satellite-to-satellite and satellite-to-ground communication links, and a variety of other elements and metrics across the entire space mission set.Evaluating Satellite Survivability
IDA developed and uses a set of tools for evaluating satellite survivability against orbital debris strikes and anti-satellite weapon attacks. IDA is establishing a simulation pipeline using a smooth-particle hydrocode to simulate hypervelocity impacts, an in-house debris propagator to establish the resultant debris field (DebProp), and another in-house tool to evaluate the risk of nearby satellite penetration (SatPen). The end-to-end pipeline will analyze the collateral risk to nearby constellation satellites from the debris generation and propagation from a space impact event.