The role of standardization in the development of next generation large space telescopes

Astronomy has always been a technology driven science. This drive to ever greater sensitivity and performance is placing great pressure on the development community to meet this ongoing need. Extrapolating demand indicates a fundamental problem of affordability and timely development for both space and ground based systems. We note, that this trend is not unique to UV/VIS band. Other systems such as very long baseline interferometry in space leads to the need of large aperture radio telescopes, gravitational wave experiments like the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and occulter and starshade missions for coronography demand for high performance at acceptable cost. This begs the question, what can be done about it? In this initial paper, we plan to explore the roles of standardization, specialization and trans-national partnerships to realize future system design and implementation. We conclude our discussion with examples of areas where standardization in hardware and engineering approaches will improve productivity to help realize the next generation of cutting edge systems. SUMMARY: With this paper we present the increase of development time and cost for space telescopes and conclude that the current way of implementing this space infrastructure can not be successfully expanded to the next generations of telescopes and experiments. We present a new paradigm of collaboration based on standards not only in engineering, but also in the way we collaborate, the way we lay-out missions and the way we collaboratively design hardware and mission infrastructure. These considerations will be based on - and expanded from - existing engineering and test standards. They will take into account the experiences and good practices of the large scale collaborations of recent space telescopes.