COMMERCIAL BUS RIDES:
Fast Ticket to Space
By Dan Freyer
AU.S. Air Force technology program is scheduled to get new sensing technology in orbit within just two
years instead of the typical seven. Separately,
Australian Defense Force (ADF) officials
estimate that taxpayers will save more than
$100 million on its UHF payload program.
Both are examples of military payloads that
will be hosted on commercial communications satellites, which are made possible
through creative partnerships between industry and government.
Hosted payloads are secondary payloads
that can be added to a commercial satellite
mission, allowing the host satellite operator
to offset its launch and common satellite
platform costs, benefitting both military and
commercial satellite operators. Potential hosted payloads include experimental, communications, weather, sensing, technology demonstration and validation, and other missions
that advance national defense objectives. The
arrangement provides faster and lower-cost
access to orbit for government payloads, and
against a backdrop of funding cuts to major
military space systems, options for hosting
payloads on commercial satellites are gaining
interest among military planners.
Testifying in June before the U.S. Senate,
Gary Payton, deputy under secretary of the
Air Force for space programs, explained how
one hosted payload program known as the
Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload Flight
Demonstration Program (CHIRP) is expected
to benefit the Air Force. “By partnering
with the commercial space industry, we will
have the opportunity to conduct early on
orbit scientific experiment of [wide field-of-view] infrared data phenomenology using a
Commercially Hosted IR (Infrared) Payload in
2010.” The technology “offers considerable
potential for reducing cost, schedule and
performance risks for the next generation of
missile warning satellites.” Putting the sensor
on a commercial satellite already scheduled
for launch eliminates the need to launch a
dedicated satellite to test the sensor.
GROWING INTEREST
“Hosted payloads offer military operators
access to space at a fraction of the cost and
a fraction of the time required for traditional
space missions,“ says Don Brown, vice president of hosted payloads, for Intelsat General,
the government-contractor subsidiary of
global satellite operator, Intelsat. Robert
Demers, senior vice president of Americom
Government Services, agrees. “Military and
civilian agencies want to put payloads into
space and have a decreasing number of
opportunities to do that, while commercial
spacecraft represent opportunities to put
payloads into orbit with every launch. Both
sides of that equation realize it’s potentially
beneficial to each,” he says.
Executives from satellite manufacturers are
also seeing growing interest in commercially
hosted payloads from military planners. “We
have seen interest from the Department of
Defense, Intelligence community and NASA,
and other civil space agencies as well as
foreign governments” says Jim Simpson, vice
president of business development, Boeing
Space and Intelligence Systems.
The perception that there are new commercial opportunities is helping to drive
new commercial alignments. For example,
in announcing a deal between Northrop
Grumman Corp. and Loral Space &
Communications to work together in seeking
government satellite contracts, Alexis Livanos,
corporate vice president and CTO of Northrop
Space Technology says, “Hosted payloads
hold the promise of providing us greater
ability and flexibility to rapidly respond to
our government customers’ evolving needs.”
For Space Systems/Loral the deal better
positions the company to serve government
markets. “In many cases we use the same
government payload providers that are used
for government satellites, so the quality and
capabilities would be very similar to those
delivered through civil and defense procurements,” says Arnold Friedman, the company’s
senior vice president of marketing and sales.
WHY THE UPTICK
IN HOSTED PAYLOADS?
Fiscal and program challenges to national
systems help make hosted payloads a more
viable option, especially when there is no
other affordable and timely alternative. The
