COLORADO SPRINGS —Just as carpooling can save resources, space missions with spacecraft that have spare room can accommodate another payload to help with costs and speed up going aloft.
The aerospace community refers to such ridesharing as “hosted payloads.” At today’s sessions of the National Space Symposium at the Broadmoor Hotel, panelists outlined advantages and challenges to the practice.
Instead of piggy-backing a ride on the same rocket as a major payload, a hosted payload of instruments or sensors shares the spacecraft. The practice requires compatible payloads that are going to the same orbit, for the same length of time at the same time.
“Not every payload can be hosted,” said Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski , commander of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. “But now is the time to get to work” exploring the issues.
The Space and Missile Systems Center has created the Hosted Payload Office to evaluate and coordinate hosted payload efforts.
The commercial market is dominating satellite launches, and “the government needs to take advantage of that,” said Brian Arnold , vice president of space strategy for Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems.
Hitchhiking possibilities exist, said Arnold Friedman , a senior vice president at Space Systems/Loral.
“There is a backlog of 75 commercial (geostationary orbit) satellites,” Friedman said. “All of these satellites are candidates for hosted payloads and will be launched in the next three years.”
Ann Schrader: 303-954-1967 or aschrader@denverpost.com
