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A comment on Planetary Resources shows off Arkyd-100 . Parent comment

Re:Planetary Resources shows off Arkyd-100 by learc83 on Tuesday January 22, 2013 @12:01AM (#5095626)
>It seems much more likely that PR's advantage, if they have one, is in miniaturization technology

Part of the miniaturization could be from not including multiple redundant, hardened systems.

If you have 3 smaller satellites that are 90% reliable (for a given time frame), that vastly trumps 1 larger satellite that is 99% reliable (assuming similar capabilities and overall weight).

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Re:Planetary Resources shows off Arkyd-100 by jessriedel on Tuesday January 22, 2013 @12:24AM (#5095690)
The trade-off between weight and reliability through redundancy is well-known to the multi-billion dollar, half-century-old space industry. This is not some new advance or insight made by PR. The only interesting thing is if PR has developed some new piece of technology which, incidentally, shifts the optimal point along the redundancy-weight curve.
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