Are Spacecraft Cheaper or More Expensive Now, and Why? Spacecraft Innovation Trends

A general conceptual approach to measuring innovation in complex systems is developed; specifically defining innovation as a measure of the rate of change of function per cost over time. This notion is applied in the context of communication satellites with the associated challenges discussed. Given the constraints on data availability, a highest-lowerbound estimator is proposed as a surrogate for function. The cost of functionality is address through the use of historical price data. The analysis reveals that innovation has, in fact, occurred over time: Communication satellites are cheaper now.