Full Orbit Consulting was formed in response to the ongoing huge cost and schedule overruns in space programs. There are cost effective ways to develop space instrumentation and in significantly less time. Full Orbit designs and specifies sensors, electronics, mission concepts, and system architectures with over 24 years of military/space  experience from our largest assets, to small unique application specific devices.

Large space companies have grown to the point that it is difficult to act any other way than they have in the past. In many cases this has been driven by program requirements that have failed to apply simple common sense. A simple request for information or proposal now requires a lengthy and costly process. A new development most often will demand a cost plus contract because of the cumbersome management structure and poor internal IR&D foresight. Cost plus offers no incentive to exceed schedule requirements unless contracts are structured in that manner. To overcome this, development needs to be performed at a small organization without the large overhead. Quick reaction to emerging customer requirements, controlling costs, and a broad technology portfolio are what will drive contract award beyond 2010.

Business plans can be developed to help companies enter the full payload market. Many companies overspend while purchasing part or all of a payload for their application. A company that offers a full solution will always be in a stronger competitive position. Space based imaging systems are no longer the sole province of a few companies. To enter the full payload market requires hundreds of thousands instead of millions of dollars. 

Manufacturing will continue to be done by qualified space houses but the NRE can be done in a much faster and concentrated way. Full Orbit is working on new mission concepts, new sensors designs and new technologies as well as incorporating these into next generation spacecraft attitude control, recorder design and signal processing.

There are a number of instruments and architectures that Full Orbit is presently driving. Due to the extremely competitive nature of the business, and program award fees, clients are not revealed unless consent is granted. Several of the systems under development can translate to aerial or even land based applications and some will be available for purchase as they near completion. This will take the form of documented system architectures, CONOPS, sensor and box level specifications, full spacecraft (or other) interface, and some will go down to the level of a command set. Performance metrics are also part of the deliverables (collection capability, power/mass, data size).