Value of bootstrapping staged deployment of infrastructure: Case study in space infrastructure deployment

This paper analyzes the value of staged deployment for complex infrastructure system and propose a concept of bootstrapping staged deployment. Staged deployment has been well known for its advantage of providing flexibility in an uncertain environment. In contrast, this paper demonstrates that the proposed bootstrapping staged deployment can even add values in a deterministic environment. The key idea of bootstrapping staged deployment is to have the previously deployed stages support the subsequent deployment. We develop an analytical model to demonstrate the effects of bootstrapping staged deployment with a case study in space exploration. Our analysis results show that with a well-coordinated deployment plan, staged deployment can overperform single-stage deployment even in a deterministic environment, and that there is an optimal number of stages in terms of lifecycle cost under certain conditions. Our method can find the analytical expression for the optimal number of stages and its deployment strategies. The general findings from the proposed concept and analytical method can advance our knowledge about systems staged deployment, and make operational planning of resource generation infrastructure more efficient.