Abstract
Low-cost satellites continue to grow in popularity and capability, but have shown poor on-orbit performance to date. While traditional satellite missions have relied upon expensive fault prevention techniques, such as component screening, the use of radiation hardened components, and extensive test campaigns, low-cost missions must focus on fault tolerance, instead. This paper describes a novel, fault-tolerant system architecture, named Satellite Stem Cells. The Satellite Stem Cell Architecture, which is based on artificial cells, evolved from research into traditional reliability theory, bio-inspired engineering, and agent-based computing. Traditional reliability theory points towards k-out-of-n architectures for their superior reliability, while cell biology demonstrates how to build extremely multifunctional subsystems. Finally, agent computing provides a solution for facilitating the cooperation of a set of autonomous cells in a peer-to-peer environment. This paper describes the development of the architecture, details the artificial cell design, and gives preliminary implementation details.