The experts on the panel included:

• Rebecca Reesman, a member of the technical staff at the Aerospace Corporation
• Tim Deaver, the Corporate Vice President of Development at SES Space and Defense
• Todd Master, the Program Manager of the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA
• Al Tadros, the Vice President of Civil and DoD Business at SSL
• Joe Anderson, the Director of Mission Extension Vehicle Services at Orbital ATK

In my initial recap of the discussion, I looked at the technologies and new advancements that are making on-orbit servicing possible. I also explained why commercial satellite operators were so excited about the potential of servicing their satellites once they’re up in space. Now, I’d like to take a look at the specific government applications of this technology and the future advancements that on-orbit servicing could enable.

Similar but not exactly the same
As to be expected, many of the benefits that on-orbit servicing would deliver to the commercial satellite industry would be welcomed by the U.S. government and military. Those benefits included being able to service and refuel a satellite that has been launched to extend its life or help it bounce back from an anomaly. In fact, the government’s acquisition process may even make it more essential that satellites can be refueled and serviced in space.

As Todd Master discussed during the panel, “While the DoD isn’t new to long development timelines and expensive satellites, acquisitions have in some ways gotten away from us more and more in the last decade or two and these systems are incredibly expensive, but also incredibly valuable…”

As Todd pointed out, military satellites are a major expense to taxpayers. They also can take a long time to design, develop, build and launch. With satellites so mission-critical to the military, any anomaly that denies them the use of one or more satellites could eliminate important capabilities and have a significant, negative effect on the military’s ability to accomplish their mission.

Waiting to restore these services and capabilities until a new satellite can be launched would border on catastrophic. Being able to bring satellites back on-line via on-orbit servicing and repair would ultimately be faster, cheaper and more efficient – while also improving mission readiness and preparedness.

As space becomes more contested and our adversaries become increasingly capable of denying our satellite capabilities, this becomes increasingly important. But another potential, more futuristic solution could prove even more essential.

Why stop at servicing…?
If we’re going to have robots service and refuel satellites on orbit, why stop there? Why not look even bigger picture? Why not shoot for something even more impressive and futuristic?

When our military designed its satellites in the past, they were designing them for a benign environment. There were no adversaries with our space capabilities, and the thought that our satellite capabilities could be denied probably sounded like something out of a science fiction novel or movie. As a result, no defensive systems were necessary, so no defensive systems were built onto satellites.

Well, science fiction has become reality. Our adversaries have become increasingly advanced and capable – and now our satellites are no longer operating in a veritable safe space. This sentiment was echoed by Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, the Commander of Air Force Space Command, in a memo to his personnel back in October, in which he wrote, “Space and cyberspace are no longer benign environments, they are contested operational domains.”

If we’re capable of interacting with satellites in space – refueling and repairing them – what is to keep us from taking the next logical step and adding capability to them? If satellites were built originally without defensive capability because that wasn’t necessary, could it be added by similar robotic means as in-orbit servicing?

The panelists and attendees from the commercial space industry were practically challenged to create that capability by Todd when he said, “…we’re seeing an increase in threats in space. The ability to…potentially add capabilities – such as defensive capabilities – is attractive.”

This ability to add payloads to existing satellites could come in handy for more than just adding defensive capabilities to existing military satellites.

Opening the door to more hosted payloads
Hosted payloads – the hosting of military payloads on commercially owned and operated satellites – is viewed across the government and industry as a way to help get military payloads into space faster and at a fraction of the cost. Ultimately, hosting payloads on commercial satellites allows the government to “hitch a ride” into space for its payload without having to build and launch a spacecraft itself.

Traditionally, this has been done while the satellite is still being built on Earth, but the ability to add payloads to on-orbit satellites could open the door to even more hosted payloads in the future – especially since this process would eliminate one of the largest challenges facing government hosted payloads today.

We reached out to Todd Gossett, the Senior Director of Hosted Payload Programs at SES Space and Defense to inquire into whether adding military payloads to commercial satellite on-orbit would be of interest to both parties, and why. According to Todd:

“That’s a good question, and the answer is,‘yes.’ One of biggest concerns keeping the federal government from embracing more hosted payload programs is that their payload won’t be ready in time to be mounted and tested on the satellite prior to the launch window. If payloads could be mounted following launch, it would eliminate this challenge. It could even be beneficial for sensitive payloads, since commercial partners on Earth would never need to interact with them.”

That’s good news to both the military and to taxpayers. Hosted payloads are widely viewed as a way to help increase the defensive posture of the military satellite network and architecture, since they effectively hide and distribute military payloads across commercial constellations. They’re also cheaper, which is great news for military budgets and the taxpayers footing the bill.

On-orbit servicing is exciting for the near-term capabilities it could enable – refueling and repairing already-launched satellites. It’s also exciting for the capabilities it could enable well into the future – which could include the addition of payloads to satellites in space, or even the construction of satellites in space. Regardless of which of those capabilities comes to fruition, it’s safe to say that the commercial space industry has a new area in which to innovate, and that new, exhilarating technologies could be on the horizon – technologies that deliver capabilities once thought impossible or unfeasible.

The post The government and military merits of on-orbit servicing appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

The panel discussion featured a veritable “who’s who” of space industry and government experts, including:

• Rebecca Reesman, a member of the technical staff at the Aerospace Corporation
• Tim Deaver, the Corporate Vice President of Development at SES Space and Defense
• Todd Master, the Program Manager of the Tactical Technology Office at DARPA
• Al Tadros, the Vice President of Civil and DoD Business at SSL
• Joe Anderson, the Director of Mission Extension Vehicle Services at Orbital ATK

This group of experts was assembled because they all are either driving on-orbit servicing, or will ultimately benefit from it. During their sometimes intense and overall riveting conversation, they defined on-orbit servicing, looked at the ways it can help the commercial satellite industry and even delved into the future technologies that could evolve and emerge from early on-orbit servicing solutions.

Based on the discussion between these individuals, it’s becoming increasingly clear that on-orbit servicing could be right around the corner and it could be an exciting and important new industry in space. So let’s explore how it works, and why it’s so exciting.

The “how” of on-orbit servicing
The concept of having commercial on-orbit servicing of satellites isn’t necessarily a new one – it’s something that the industry has flirted with for a while. However, it’s only now starting to look like a reality and less like science fiction.

There are obvious restrictions on what humans can do in space, but robots are not bound to those limitations, and advancements in robotics are just one of the multiple new technologies driving on-orbit servicing forward.

If you couple new innovations in robotics with new propulsion technologies, the evolution of advanced sensors and other advancements, and the concept of having a robot service a satellite in space suddenly seams surprisingly feasible.

Al Tadros summed this up well during the panel discussion when he said, “There were definitely some key technologies that evolved over the last ten years that are critical to satellite servicing…Robotics…is advancing quite a bit…making it not such a stretch of the imagination to do satellite servicing. There’s a number of elements that have culminated to make it not only technically feasible, but also economically feasible to do commercial satellite servicing.”

What we now have is a culmination and coming together of multiple exciting technologies and advancements that are making it completely possible to approach, interact with and service a satellite that has been built and launched into orbit. Commercial space companies are looking to make this a service that they offer to the government and commercial satellite operators.

So, that explains how on-orbit servicing is becoming a reality, but why? Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should – or that there’s a demand for it. However, in this instance, the demand could be far greater than some would imagine – especially among COMSATCOM operators.

The “why” of on-orbit servicing
To this day, once a satellite is in orbit, there’s currently no feasible way to make repairs to it. Should an anomaly arise, there really is no recourse for the satellite operator.

Aside from the repair issue, there’s also the issue of fuel. Perfectly good, functioning satellites often reach their end of life simply because they run out of fuel and have to be decommissioned.

The concept of on-orbit servicing could – in theory – fix all of that. Utilizing advanced robotics to conduct operations in space that a human simply can’t. Satellites could be repaired or refueled to help extend their life. This is a proposition that’s clearly exciting for commercial satellite operators because it gives them the ability to reduce or mitigate the losses from anomalies, while also prolonging the life of exceptionally expensive spacecraft that are already in orbit.

This point was reinforced by Tim Deaver during the panel discussion, when he said, “If a satellite program is going to cost us $300M to get up into orbit and it’s only going to last us 15 years, that’s about $20M a year in costs. If I can refuel it and get three more years for a reasonable cost…it makes economic sense.”

It’s going to make even more economic sense for commercial operators in the near future. The trend towards HTS satellites and the sheer numbers of “birds” in the sky has led to a decrease in bandwidth costs, as an influx of capacity has hit the market. As the cost for capacity decreases, it becomes even more essential for operators to maximize the life – and subsequently the revenue generated – from every satellite they launch.

As Tim said, “For us it’s about making sense in the marketplace. As we see the downturn in the price of capacity onboard and the revenue that we can generate from a satellite, it becomes about how do we get cheaper satellites, how do we get cheaper launch, and what can we do to satellites that are up in orbit that are still working well, but are getting to the end of [their] fuel life.”

It’s for this reason that Tim claims SES will be one of the first customers for Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) when it’s available.

However, the commercial industry isn’t the only group interested in on-orbit servicing of satellites. There are tremendous government and military use cases and opportunities for this technology. In our next article on the Government Satellite Report, we’ll delve into the reasons why the military is excited about this solution, and the unique future capabilities it could enable.

The post WSBR panel discussion illustrates industry interest in on-orbit servicing appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

One of the key topics discussed during the conference was the increasing congestion in space, and the rising probability of collisions between spacecraft.

This was the focus of a panel discussion featuring Doug Loverro, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy at the Department of Defense (DoD).

Let’s take a deeper look at the cause and severity of the problem, as well as potential solutions.

More than before
Satellites are expensive, large and extremely costly to launch into space. This high cost has historically served as a high bar of entry, keeping many organizations from launching spacecraft. But the number of satellites in space is increasing, and that rate of growth could increase exponentially as new trends in the space industry converge.

With the emergence of new technologies, such as High Throughput Satellites (HTS), we’re seeing massive investment from commercial satellite operators, who are launching new HTS constellations that will drastically increase their capacity – allowing them to offer higher bandwidth and higher throughputs to their customers. However, the introduction of these new spacecraft – mostly at GEO – is adding to the number of satellites in that orbit.

The number of these launches last year and the total number of satellites in orbit was provided by Al Tadros of SSL and the Hosted Payload Alliance when he said, “In 2015…there were 65 commercial launches, which added to the 1500 satellites in operation…”

But GEO isn’t the only Earth orbit in fashion these days. There is a new generation of MEO satellite constellations offering high throughputs and insanely low latency to customers that is growing rapidly. LEO satellites are also increasingly common.

There are two factors and trends driving this boom in satellites:

• First, launch is still cost prohibitive, but much less than it used to be. Experts even predict that launch costs will continue to decrease and launch windows will become increasingly available as new launch pads open across the country and as commercial space flight operators enter the marketplace.
• Then there’s the cost of satellites. New advances in satellite construction, a new generation of smaller, accurate and inexpensive sensors and other advances is decreasing the overall cost of satellites. Together, these trends are driving a new wave of interest in satellites. They’ve led to increased satellite and space startup companies, and have even led to investment in space innovation from Silicon Valley.

According to one industry panelist at the Summit, “…there’s figures out there that indicate that there are 3,600 additional small satellites – at a minimum – that are going to be launched over the next ten years…a roughly 80 percent increase over the last eight years…”

But what does this mean? It means that space is more crowded than ever, and it’s only going to get even more crowded in the very near future. With this many spacecraft orbiting Earth, spacecraft collisions are becoming increasingly probable – an issue that will impact any organization with satellites in space.

Is it time to hit the panic button?
Although it’s true that the sheer number of satellites in space is already high and growing, the challenge does appear to mostly be in front of us. Much of the discussion about collisions in space were forward-looking, with experts discussing what is coming down the road.

As Mr. Loverro stated, “[Today,] the (International Space Station) needs to maneuver away from a collision once or twice a year – mostly just because of debris. But we’ve done calculations that show that – as these large constellations go into orbit and as they deorbit – those maneuvers could go from once or twice a year to once or twice a month – or once or twice a week.”

And the problem may be more about the perceived proximity of objects in space, and not the actual distance separating them. As Mr. Loverro noted:

“Quite frankly, it’s not because space is that crowded. It’s because of our ability to provide good insight into how close things are coming together, and our need to go ahead and create a large safety window around things like the ISS, national security satellites and expensive commercial satellites. We create a very big bubble around those satellites. And those big bubbles sweep out across far more area than the actual collision risk.”

With so little accurate situational awareness in space, it’s difficult for the military to know when something is truly at risk, or if they’re being overly cautious. With the cost of satellites so high, this leads to satellites, space stations and other spacecraft being moved unnecessarily because the parties involved simply can’t afford to take a chance. As Mr. Loverro noted, “It’s empty bubbles of uncertainty that are causing congestion today…”

However, it’s clear that actual congestion is going to be an issue that both the government and private industry will soon have to address.

Awareness, regulation and enforcement
As congestion in space increases, it’s going to fall to the federal government and military to work with the space industry to regulate what happens in space, and to enforce the regulations both domestically and internationally.

To help increase situational awareness, Mr. Loverro proposed a concept that should be very familiar to the aviation industry – devices such as transponders on satellites that effectively tell people on the ground where the satellites are. This is similar to what is found on planes today, and helps to reduce the reliance on sensing from the ground.

According to Mr. Loverro:

…it may take two to make that sensor problem work. It may not just be a radar that the government owns on the ground. It may be something that is on the satellite that gives us a better idea of where it is. Every air traffic item that’s flying out there has to have a transponder that’s beeping its own location. That’s so we can relieve some of the responsibility from the sensing side and provide more responsibility to the “I’m here” side of things. If we don’t deal with both sides, it’ll be difficult to shrink that bubble.

This year’s Hosted Payload and Small Sat Summit did an excellent job of illustrating the expanding interest and involvement in space. It also did a great job of highlighting the negative side of that increased interest – higher numbers of satellites, more congestion and an increased change of collisions in space. However, as experts at this year’s Summit suggested, the issue may lie as much with congestion as it does with a lack of situational awareness, and real issues may remain in the future. But it’s essential that government and industry work together to ensure that pricey spacecraft don’t start to have in-space accidents.

For additional information on hosted payloads and the ways in which they can help the federal government by increasing access to space and cutting costs, click on the following resources:

• Article: Follow All the Tech and Trash Orbiting Earth, in Real Time
• Whitepaper: What is a Hosted Payload?
• Hosted Payloads Infographic
• PODCAST: Nicole Robinson on the benefits of hosted payloads for NOAA and other federal agencies
• PODCAST: CHIRP team discusses program and benefits of hosted payloads

The post DoD discusses taking steps to reduce collisions in space appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

What we heard was that the military and the rest of the federal government were well aware of the benefits of hosted payloads, but concerns about risk and issues related to culture across agencies and military branches were impeding adoption.

But the light at the end of the tunnel does currently appear to be an enormous, burning beacon that’s much closer and more attainable than it ever has been in the not-so-distant past. That’s because many of the government decision makers in attendance were tirelessly working to champion hosted payloads, and made powerful statements about them being incorporated into future military and government satellite plans moving forward.

The timing for increased hosted payload adoption couldn’t be better. That’s because another common discussion at this year’s Summit focused on a huge problem that the military is going to face in the future. A problem that hosted payloads could help the military overcome – securing and protecting satellites in space.

Space – no longer the ultimate high ground
The protection of satellite networks and capabilities is a relatively new challenge facing our military. A fact that was emphasized by Dr. David A. Hardy, the Associate Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force (Space), when he said, “We historically viewed space as the ultimate high ground – a place where our adversaries couldn’t attack us.”

But that invulnerability in space is gone. Space is an increasingly contested environment. Today, both government and commercial spacecraft face obstacles that they never faced before.

First, there’s the sheer number of objects in space, which is only going to increase as the cost of satellites and launch continues to decline. Each new satellite that is launched creates increased congestion and raises the probability of a collision in space. This was a popular topic of discussion at the Summit, the focus of an entire keynote discussion, and I’ll be discussing it in an upcoming post on the GovSat Report.

Then there are the issues that military satellites face with jamming, interference and direct kinetic attacks on satellites. These are all capabilities that our adversaries have, and can use to neutralize our satellite infrastructure – which is widely known to be a significant tactical advantage to our military.

With satellite communications so essential to activities in theater and our warfighter, it’s essential that satellites are protected in this new, contested environment. And if a satellite is targeted for jamming or kinetic attach, it’s equally essential that the capabilities it empowers aren’t lost. According to Dr. Hardy, “We need to build an overall DoD satellite architecture that is resilient, in that it maintains performance even if it is attacked.”

Hosted payloads and COMSATCOM as keys to resiliency
We know that our adversaries have been testing their capabilities for launching kinetic attacks against satellites. It’s no longer a question of “if” we’ll have to conduct military operations in situations where our satellite infrastructure is attacked or compromised – it’s a question of “when.”

Understanding the new risks to our satellites, the DoD is now looking at COMSATCOM services, small sats and hosted payloads as a potential way to increase its resiliency in these circumstances. According to Dr. Hardy, “(The) promise of increased capacity and hosted payloads in GEO – and small sats in LEO – provides opportunities to increase resiliency.”

How they accomplish that is very simple. By utilizing a combination of satellites and satellite services – including COMSATCOM capacity, hosted military payloads on commercial satellites and small sats in LEO or MEO orbits – for military operations, the DoD can effectively disaggregate their satellite communications network and make it significantly harder for adversaries to deny satellite communications and capabilities.

In this situation, it would be extremely difficult to target any one satellite to compromise the military’s satellite communications and capabilities. Even if a satellite was compromised, it would effectively fail to deny those mission-critical services.

Also, should an adversary look to disable a hosted payload or COMSATCOM service on a commercial satellite, they would effectively be targeting far more than a single nation’s military. They could be cutting off essential communications services for other nations, and maybe even their own citizens.

As Dr. Hardy stated, “A more proliferated architecture that is not all military only can increase capability and resilience.”

There is a significant groundswell of support for increased adoption of COMSATCOM services and hosted payloads across the federal government and military. Their ability to drastically increase the government’s access to space is one of the reasons for this support, but the need to protect satellites may be just as important.

It’s a new age in space, and we’re not alone in orbit. The speakers at the Hosted Payload and Small Sat Summit made it abundantly clear that we need to protect our satellites and satellite capabilities, and hosted payloads could play a role in accomplishing that mission.

For additional information on hosted payloads and the ways in which they can help the federal government by increasing access to space and cutting costs, click on the following resources:

• Whitepaper: What is a Hosted Payload?
• Hosted Payloads Infographic
• PODCAST: Nicole Robinson on the benefits of hosted payloads for NOAA and other federal agencies
• PODCAST: CHIRP team discusses program and benefits of hosted payloads

The post The role of COMSATCOM and hosted payloads in protecting military satellite capabilities appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

So, if the public sector – the federal government, government agencies, branches of the military and the intelligence community – know that hosted payloads can deliver significant savings and benefits, why aren’t they using them?

That question was one of many at the crux of the discussions at this year’s Hosted Payload and Small Sat Summit –an annual event hosted by Access Intelligence which focuses on the uses of hosted payloads and small satellites to accomplish government missions.

This year’s Summit brought together an interesting mix of industry leaders from satellite manufacturers and satellite communications (SATCOM) providers, government decision makers and program managers from exciting small sat and hosted payload projects across the federal government. The keynote addresses and panel discussions at this year’s event did an excellent job of illustrating the state of hosted payload adoption across the government, and the organizational challenges keeping hosted payloads from seeing even broader adoption.

Hosted Payload Alliance Weighs in on Payload Adoption

Early in the conference, Al Tadros, the Chair of the Hosted Payload Alliance and VP of Civil and DoD Business for Space Systems Loral (SSL), laid out some of the many benefits of hosted payloads to attendees. In Al’s words, these benefits include, “Increased access to space, lower launch cost and risk, more resilient architectures resulting from hosting on commercial satellites, operational flexibility of having access on a large number of commercial satellites and payload-focused acquisitions rather than the full-on, purpose built, free-flyer missions that the government regularly uses.”

Although all of those benefits are alluring for the military and federal government, the ability for hosted payloads to dramatically increase the government’s access to space is potentially the most compelling. The concept of hosting payloads on commercial spacecraft makes each new satellite that is launched by the COMSATCOM industry an opportunity to expand the government and military’s presence in space.

According to Al, “In 2015…there were 65 commercial launches, which added to the 1500 satellites in operation – half of which are commercial satellites and 37 percent of which are commercial communications satellites. This is a huge percentage of what’s in space, and the access to this is the promise of what hosted payloads can provide.”

But even this ability to increase access to space has yet to drive hosted payload programs across the military. And that may have more to do with what the military is comfortable with, and less to do with what is best for the military and its mission.

History of DoD Hosted Payload Initiatives

One of the first keynote addresses at the event was delivered by Dr. David A. Hardy, the Associate Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force (Space), who explored the history of the DoD’s space initiatives and illustrated how they impact space policy today.
As Dr. Hardy explained, the Air Force has historically faced limited options and opportunities for launch. These limited launch options were extremely expensive, so the Air Force responded by building massive, monolithic space craft that would deliver immense capability while maximizing the return on their launch investment. And the high total cost – coupled with the mission-critical nature – of the satellites being launched made the Air Force understandably risk adverse and inclined to try and control everything.

As Dr. Hardy stated, “We in the DoD space community like to keep control over our assets.”

Much of this sentiment about facing and handling risk, and demanding to own every part of the process and all parts of a mission, were echoed in a later presentation by Major James Crane, the Deputy Branch Chief of the Air Force’s Hosted Payload Office, within the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC).

“I would like to acknowledge the frustration that you all have with how quickly the government has adopted hosted payloads,” Major Crane shared. “It’s not really a technical issue. It really comes down to how the government deals with risk. We also have frustration from the side of the government with our inability to adopt hosted payloads.”

Major Crane’s position and office are, in themselves, a positive step forward to overcoming this frustration and increasing hosted payload adoption across the government. His office’s mission is to effectively serve as a liaison between industry and government entities to help identify hosted payload opportunities and bring payloads together with COMSATCOM providers that can host them.

Utilizing an IDIQ contract called HoPS (known as the Air Force’s Hosted Payload Solutions Program), Major Crane can appropriately match government projects with comparable hosting opportunities. Unfortunately, this faces its own limitations and challenges. The agencies that are most likely to embrace hosted payloads are also those least likely to have budget dollars to afford them.

According to Major Crane, “The people that can best accept a lot of risk are often the scientific community and scientific exploration missions. Unfortunately, while they can most accept the risk, they’re also the organizations and projects with the tightest budgets.”

Regardless of these challenges, signs are pointing towards hosted payload adoption increasing in the coming years.

According to Major Crane, “I think we are seeing at SMC some movement towards ensuring that the hosted payload concept is being included in all AoAs moving forward. There is a wideband AoA coming up in the near future. The MILSATCOM AoAs will include commercial hosting. We’re working closely with the offices that develop the concepts for the AoAs [to ensure hosting is included.]”

Hosted Payload Office Looks Towards a More Collaborative Future

Hosted payload adoption will only increase as the DoD and the COMSATCOM industry continue to work more closely together. The military has been historically guarded when working with industry, but they’re learning to work more closely with the private sector from organizations that have historically been extremely collaborative. In fact, the ongoing TEMPO program – which includes NASA and the Air Force working together on a hosted payload opportunity – has been a learning process for the Air Force.

As Major Crane shared, “There is a paradigm at SMC with how we interact with industry. Interacting with NASA and seeing how they interact with industry as we’re executing this TEMPO effort has been really eye-opening for us in the Hosted Payload Office. And we’re starting to see that the way that we’re implementing acquisitions is overly constraining, and that we do it to ourselves. That has been a very interesting revelation.”

Ultimately, the benefits of hosted payloads are staggering. Their ability to increase access to space, slash the cost of military space missions and fundamentally shift the way the military approaches satellite and spacecraft acquisitions is simply too important to let concerns about risk and control keep hosted payloads on the ground.

As Dr. Hardy said, “I feel that [keeping control over our assets] is an outmoded concept…We are looking at hosted payloads and they WILL be a part of our future architecture.”

For additional information on hosted payloads and the ways in which they can help the federal government by increasing access to space and cutting costs, click on the following resources:

• Whitepaper: What is a Hosted Payload?
• Hosted Payloads Infographic
• PODCAST: Nicole Robinson on the benefits of hosted payloads for NOAA and other federal agencies
• PODCAST: CHIRP team discusses program and benefits of hosted payloads

The post Hosted payloads – do the benefits finally outweigh the risks? appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

Earlier this month, the GovSat Report editorial team had the opportunity to attend the SATELLITE 2016 Conference at the Gaylord National Convention Center, in National Harbor, MD. This four-day-long event – one of the satellite industry’s largest and most influential conferences and expositions – brought together industry leaders, satellite experts and government decision makers to discuss innovative new satellite technologies, industry trends and best practices in the use and acquisition of COMSATCOM hardware, services and solutions.

During the very first panel discussion I attended at this year’s event, entitled, “Developments in the Adoption of Hosted Payload and Smallsats for Government Use,” experts from private industry and the federal government came together to discuss the state of hosted payload adoption across government agencies, and the factors impacting their adoption. Surprisingly, the outlook wasn’t as positive as one would anticipate.

Hosted payloads have the ability to deliver an impressive list of benefits to government organizations, federal agencies and military branches. By hosting a government payload on a commercial satellite, government users can drastically decrease the total cost of putting that payload into space. This cost savings is achieved by splitting the expense of constructing the spacecraft and launch.

But cost savings is just one of the important benefits of hosted payloads. The use of a hosted payload as an alternative to the construction and launch of a government owned and operated satellite can get that payload and its mission-critical capabilities into space faster, since satellite fielding – and therefore the hosting opportunity – typically operates in a 36 month purchase decision-to-launch cycle, and since most COMSATCOM providers have a few launches during the course of the year simply to replace satellites and refresh their constellations.

The U.S. Government knows of these benefits and acknowledges them. According to Philip Liebrecht, the Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator and Deputy Program Manager of Space Communications and Navigation at NASA, “There are a lot of advantages of these hosted payloads when you look at them from the government’s vantage point. Especially from NASA’s standpoint. But the big ones are the potential for lower costs, the more rapid technology refresh, architecture flexibility…redundancy, robustness and resiliency. And all of those are important.”

Mr. Liebrecht’s comment brings up another very important benefit of hosted payloads that many ignore – they’re capable of making government satellite constellations and programs more secure and resilient. Government owned and operated satellites shine like beacons in the sky for adversaries. However, government payloads on commercial satellites are harder to identify. They also can be difficult to impact without also impacting other, non-governmental satellite capacity and capabilities. Attributes of resilience, including disaggregation, distribution, diversification, proliferation and protection can all be enabled and enhanced by the use of hosted payloads.

However, despite these benefits, the overarching tone during the panel discussion was one of exasperation and frustration due to the perceptively slow adoption of hosted payloads across the government.

This frustration was plainly and eloquently explained by Earl White, a former Air Force Senior Executive and Intelligence Advisor at the United States Space Security and Defense Program, who said, “I left government service last month after 27 years with the National Reconnaissance Office and Air Force Space Command…I left frustrated. In my last seven years in Air Force Space Command, I saw three major proposals for hosted payloads come through – and a few smaller ones as well – and in every case, they were going to leverage large commercial [satellites] and provide some kind of benefit to the government at bargain basement price. All three failed. In fact, every hosted payload proposal that I saw come through Air Force Space Command failed.”

Frustration aside, the panel did identify some solid reasons why hosted payload adoption has crept forward at a slower pace, and also identified some ways in which the military, federal agencies and industry can all work towards making hosted payloads a more trusted and relied-upon method for enabling satellite communications and capabilities. Let’s look at the causes first.

What’s Hindering Hosted Payloads?

Surprisingly…not much. Based on the discussions and presentations during the hosted payload panel, the biggest challenges for hosted payloads appear to be cultural and procedural. Or, as Al Tadros, the Chair of the Hosted Payload Alliance and Vice President of Civil Defense Business at SSL, explained, “Some of [the challenges] are real – such as scheduling and programmatics – and some of them are perception – such as culture and tradition – that have real manifestations that need to be addressed.”

Ultimately, the government and the industry operate at a different pace. They also differ in philosophy when it comes to the planning and execution of programs.

The federal government works at a much slower pace than private industry. The planning of government satellite programs needs to begin almost a decade in advance due to the large number of processes and amount of budgeting that needs to take place. Private industry operates much more quickly and with far less time to execute. This is where it becomes difficult to align government processes with commercial launch schedules. The government is often unprepared to meet such quick turnaround times, and private industry simply doesn’t work or plan as far out as the government does.

Then there’s the cultural issue. Many hosted payload programs are challenging programs of record. This is often a losing battle since many government employees at the program management level are hesitant to change, even when senior decision makers are in favor of it.
The federal government and military are also often concerned about the legal ramifications and issues that may arise from making certain commitments. Private enterprises simply looking for a verbal or written confirmation of an agency’s interest in a collaboration or partnership will be turned down by legal departments concerned that they’re angling the agency towards potential litigation. This cautious nature ends up torpedoing many hosted payload public-private partnerships before they even get off the ground.

An example of this was provided by Mr. White, who shared the following anecdote:

One of the [satellite] companies had investors that were ready to put money – big money – into a constellation, but they were a little bit nervous. And they wanted some kind of confidence that the government would buy this kind of service – and not much confidence, just a little bit. So I drafted them a letter for the Commander of Air Force Space Command to sign…The letter was very noncommittal and basically said that the solution was one that we might be interested in…Well this mealy-worded letter was sufficient for the investors until Air Force Space Command legal reviewed it and said, “no way…if this company goes out of business, they may sue the government…”

Coming Together to Make Hosted Payloads a Reality:

Although the challenges outlined above may seem relatively minor, they’ve managed to restrict hosted payload missions and deployments by the U.S. government to just a handful of notable programs. However, the panelists did present a few enticing ideas that can help both private industry and government entities come together to make more hosted payloads a reality.

The first concept is to be flexible when it comes to hosted payload models. Often times, a hosted payload program is a collaboration between the government, agency or military branch and its private industry partner. Panelists urged the `government to come to industry early in the process so that a collaborative solution to the government’s problem or need can be identified. Conversely, they also urged industry partners to work collaboratively to identify different models in which to implement a hosted payload, enabling the government entity to find one that both fits their needs and comfort level.

Next, the panel discussed some simple steps that can be taken to better align industry and government in the timing and execution of hosted payload programs.

Included in these proposed steps was the creation of a “train schedule” of launches that clearly shows the federal government when there are upcoming industry satellite launches that could play host to hosted payload programs. They also encouraged industry partners to provide a number of potential launch opportunities in succession that can give government entities options should they miss their initial target launch date. This is a step that Kay Sears noted was very effective in the successful completion of the SES and Air Force CHIRP hosted payload program.

Finally, industry needs to understand the financial restraints and challenges that federal government agencies face. Hard cost caps are a reality for agencies such as NASA, and industry partners need to work collaboratively to fit programs under them. Cost uncertainty also has to be eliminated to bring a hosted payload program from conception to completion, since significant cost overruns can cause the canceling of programs at cash-strapped agencies.

This was well explained by Mr. Leibrecht when he explained how hosted payload programs fail at NASA, stating that, “the most common case is that the cost of the hosting was just too high to come up with a mission that could fit within the cost cap. And in some cases – and as frequently happens with high technology payloads – there are changes in the payload as the development process takes place and all of a sudden there is a change in the requirements for the host. And those drive the cost up, and the mission is canceled. Cost is very, very important…”

Although there continues to be some frustration at the slower than anticipated pace of hosted payload adoption, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The government recognizes the benefits and understands what it can gain through more aggressive uses of hosted payloads. And the successful hosted payload programs – including CHIRP and the Air Force’s Pathfinder program – are setting the stage by eliminating uncertainty and doubt about the validity and ROI of hosted payloads. With some simple compromises and minor steps, the challenges can be overcome, and this cost effective, security-increasing and mission-expediting alternative can see even more rapid adoption.

To learn more about hosted payloads, click on the resources below:

• What is a Hosted Payload?
• Hosted Payloads Infographic
• VIDEO: Pete Hoene on the benefits of hosted payloads
• PODCAST: CHIRP team discusses program and benefits of hosted payloads
• PODCAST: Nicole Robinson on the benefits of hosted payloads for NOAA and other federal agencies

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