COLORADO SPRINGS — The National Space Symposium wraps up today at the Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs, with the last of dozens of presentations on tap by military, civil and commercial leaders.
On Wednesday, the third day of the annual event, news broke that Gov. John Hickenlooper will sign a law requiring space travelers to sign agreements that acknowledge the inherent risk of spaceflight — considered a big step for the state’s robust aerospace industry.
Senate Bill 35 will allow Colorado to capitalize on new commercial space- transportation opportunities.
Hickenlooper announced in December that he had asked the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation to designate Colorado as a spaceport state. A proposed site for the spaceport, which would involve horizontal takeoffs and landings by space planes, is Front Range Airport, near Watkins.
Also Wednesday, there was frequent talk about how to go into space amid tight budgets. The answer often has been partnerships and collaborations, such as integrating a main payload with a smaller one on the same spacecraft in what is called hosted payloads.
Instead of piggybacking 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 such 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
