As a Shuttle, ELV, and sounding rocket payload developer the author has been exposed to almost every conceivable launch environment. This experience showed that the design of satellites is primarily driven by the launch environment and only secondarily by the space environment. Therefore, eliminating dynamic and acoustic loads will have large payoffs in terms of the design, manufacture, test and deployment of spacecraft. Additionally, if the designer is freed from the geometric constraints of the payload fairing, new capabilities and weight efficient architectures can be implemented.

In considering the above in designing spacecraft the author has developed a new methodology that can considerably reduce the cost, increase the capabilities, and decrease the development time for spacecraft. The term developed for it is the SkySat on orbit assembly method. In the SkySat method the designer takes each significant subsystem of a spacecraft and physically breaks it down into components that can be stored in energy absorbing material encased in a container. These sub assemblies are carried to orbit on the Shuttle or expendable launcher. The cargo must be taken to ISS, another manned space facility or the Shuttle itself to be assembled, tested, and deployed.

Dennis Wingo, Transforming Spacecraft Economics Via On Orbit Assembly