A U.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.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
