Role-specialization in clustered satellite platforms

A method of operating a satellite platform, the method comprising:

• defining specialized roles among a plurality of satellite devices positioned in orbit, wherein the specialized roles are defined based at least on presently provisioned software elements and hardware elements that vary among the plurality of satellite devices;
• maintaining attribute scoring metrics that rate one or more satellite devices in competency among at least a portion of the specialized roles;
• identifying tasks to be serviced using one or more of the specialized roles;
• based at least in part on the attribute scoring metrics, determining one or more target satellite devices that satisfy the one or more of the specialized roles to handle the tasks;
• and
• transferring at least task instructions for delivery to the one or more target satellite devices for performing the tasks using at least one among the presently provisioned software elements and hardware elements associated with the one or more of the specialized roles.

A satellite device positioned in orbit, comprising:

• a communication system configured to receive task descriptions and associated data from at least one peer satellite device;
• a task execution system configured to identify specialized roles indicated in the task descriptions and determine if the satellite device supports one or more of the specialized roles for processing the associated data based at least on a present provisioning of software elements and hardware elements in the satellite device;
• based at least on the satellite device supporting the one or more of the specialized roles, the task execution system configured to execute one or more tasks for processing the associated data in accordance with associated task descriptions;
• and
• based at least on the satellite device not supporting the one or more of the specialized roles, the task execution system configured to instruct the communication system to transfer the associated task descriptions and the associated data for delivery to a further peer satellite device supporting the one or more of the specialized roles, wherein the further peer satellite device is selected from among a plurality of satellite devices having specialized roles defined at least by presently provisioned software elements and hardware elements that vary among the plurality of satellite devices.