NASA GOLD will observe Earth’s space weather in a very important region, where the part of the atmosphere that is ionized by radiation from the sun –  called the ionosphere – is coupled with the unionized atmosphere, which is often referred to as the thermosphere.

<Watch the latest GOLD video courtesy of NASA by clicking here>

While much has been written about the GOLD science mission and its contributions to better understanding how the weather of the Ionosphere impacts radio frequency transmissions and low earth orbiting satellites that use this region, little has been shared about GOLD’s arduous journey from manufacturing to orbit. That’s a shame, since the process of building, mounting and then launching a payload aboard a commercial satellite is an interesting one – and one that we’re going to shed some more light on right now.

GOLD is notable in part because of the organizations working in concert to make the entire program a success. The mission represents the first time universities and a commercial spacecraft operator will team up to enable a NASA science program. GOLD is being developed and operated by a team comprised of NASA, the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), the University of Central Florida, Airbus Defence and Space, and SES. Each of these organizations played a role in taking GOLD from concept to reality.

Payload Integration & Testing

The NASA GOLD hosted payload was completed by LASP in late 2016 and delivered it to the Airbus satellite integration facility in Toulouse, France, in January 2017.  Airbus is SES’ contractor to build and deliver GOLD’s host spacecraft, SES-14. After assembling the main components of SES-14, Airbus integrated GOLD on the Earth-facing deck of the satellite in April.

Throughout the spring, summer and fall, SES-14 and GOLD underwent a series of tests to verify that the satellite met requirements for SES-14’s communications mission and to verify both SES-14 and GOLD met mission compatibility requirements established early in the program.  Both SES-14 and GOLD passed with flying colors.

SES-14 and GOLD underwent final preparations in Toulouse in December and were transported from Toulouse to the Guiana Space Centre near Kourou, French Guiana, aboard a contracted Antonov 124 aircraft on December 22.  SES-14 and GOLD are currently being prepared for a January 25 launch on an Ariane 5 rocket, by SES’ launch service provider for this mission, Arianespace.

Getting into Orbit

The Ariane 5 rocket will place SES-14 and GOLD into a transfer orbit. Over the next few months, Airbus will raise SES-14 to a geostationary orbit before handing off operations to SES. After a few weeks of on-orbit testing and checkout, SES-14 will commence its communications mission at 45.7° West over Brazil, where is will serve video, mobility, and other customers over Europe, the transatlantic region and the Americas.

Once SES-14 is operational, the LASP team will commission GOLD for its science mission, which will begin a few weeks after GOLD commissioning activities commence.

As a geostationary satellite, SES-14 will provide GOLD a vantage point to constantly look at the same region of the Earth. GOLD’s sensor will have a 30 minute cadence – observing the disk and limb of the earth every 30 minutes. It’s the first time that NASA can study the ionosphere and thermosphere from a geostationary orbit. Previous missions have been in low earth orbit, where the cadence to revisit the same region is once per day.

Ready for Transmission

From its orbit, GOLD will transmit its science data using one of SES-14’s communications channels to an SES teleport at Woodbine, MD.  From there, SES will route the data to LASP’s GOLD Science Operations Center for initial processing.

The data delivered by GOLD will be a series of images – one produced every 30 minutes – which can be played as a movie. These images contain spectral information, multiple wavelengths or colors, as well as spatial information. Overall, this data will provide key information about how Earth’s upper atmosphere connects to the dynamic and complex system of space that fills our solar system.

To watch the launch of SES-14 and the GOLD hosted payload, click HERE.  To learn more about the GOLD hosted payload, download this GOLD & ICON infographic to learn about the benefits of hosted payloads or the whitepaper “What is a Hosted Payload?” Be sure to watch the launch live here: www.arianespace.com on January 25, 2018.

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As a follow up, we are taking a closer look at the logistics and program requirements of a hosted payload program in academia. What exactly do academic institutions need to have in place to make a hosted payload program a success and how much time and resources are required?

To gain a firmer grasp on these requirements, GSR sat down with Dr. Richard Eastes, the Principal Investigator for NASA’s GOLD Mission. GOLD (Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk) is an ultraviolet (UV) imaging spectrograph designed to measure densities and temperatures in Earth’s thermosphere and ionosphere and will be launched as a hosted payload onboard SES-14.

<TO LISTEN TO A PODCAST ABOUT THE GOLD PROGRAM, CLICK HERE>

Here’s what Dr. Eastes had to say about getting a successful hosted payload program off the ground:

Government Satellite Report (GSR): What are some of the two or three basic requirements needed to start a successful hosted payload program on a campus?

Dr. Richard Eastes (RE): Funding is essential, as is a goal that is interesting and feasible. To get the funding needed for the GOLD mission of opportunity, my team and I had to explain how allowing us to spend millions of dollars of NASA’s money will help solve a problem or question that is of interest to them and other scientists.

GOLD was selected for funding after:

• Scientists reviewing the proposed science were convinced that the mission was the most scientifically promising mission of opportunity of 12 proposed missions
• A team evaluating the implementation plan, (the technical, cost and management aspects) for the proposed mission were convinced that the mission was likely to result in a successful mission.

Providing that information was possible for GOLD due to the efforts of an enthusiastic team of outstanding scientists and exceptional engineers.

Able leadership of the teams is also crucial, and for a Principal Investigator-led mission like GOLD, that has been my responsibility.

GSR: What would you say are the first steps that administrators or faculty would need to take to put such a program in place? What groups would need to be involved?

Dr. Eastes: Our first step was to identify an opportunity provided by NASA to which we could propose  some ideas for an interesting  science investigation that somewhat matched our expertise.  That enabled some colleagues and myself to then identify other scientists whose expertise and interests would benefit the effort. From there, we could carefully select team members who would be available while accomplishing all the science goals we were proposing, all within the limitations of the funding. Then we had to identify organizations capable of providing what was needed for a successful mission.

For GOLD, the instrument to make the measurements needed and part of the ground system is provided by the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), the University of Central Florida is providing the processing of the data, and SES is providing the hosting. While most hosted science payloads have flown on satellites intended for science missions, such missions at geostationary orbit, the orbits we needed for GOLD, are rare. Therefore, we needed a feasible way of getting the instrument into geostationary orbit, and SES has handled that wonderfully.

GSR: What would be the optimum size for a university hosted payload team? Would it be a comparable size to a professional, business-to-business hosted payload team?

Dr. Eastes: Creation of the proposals for GOLD was supported by the part-time efforts of approximately 12 scientists, a few engineers, and especially a project manager. The development of GOLD instrument was supported by the efforts of approximately 15 scientists and, at the peak of the instrument development, approximately 20 engineers.

A significantly larger science team would have been challenging to support within the budget constraints for the GOLD mission, but the range of expertise needed to address the science goals of the mission could not be adequately covered without the team members participating. GOLD is a cost-capped mission, meaning there have always been funding restrictions.

A business-to-business hosted payload team could be smaller. Most of the GOLD science team members are primarily supported by other sources and devote only limited amounts of time to the mission. Also, since GOLD is motivated by a diverse set of science goals, a more diverse and somewhat larger team is needed.

However, the engineers, who were responsible for the detailed design and fabrication, are all professionals. They moved onto the program as they were needed and moved to other projects when their work was completed.

GSR: Who would the stakeholders involved in a project like this one include?

Dr. Eastes: I’ll use GOLD as my frame of reference for these answers. Stakeholders would include the funder of the mission (e.g. NASA), the instrument builder (e.g. LASP), the science team (e.g. universities, government organizations and one third-party company), and the host mission owner (e.g. SES).

GSR: How long do you think a program like this would take to build out?

Dr. Eastes: If by build out, you mean to build the instrument – it depends on the time needed to design as well as build the instrument. Meeting the goal of the GOLD mission required a new instrument design and defining the interfaces to the spacecraft.

Most of the work on the design, the detailed work necessary for an instrument to be built, began after funding was received. For GOLD, that required approximately three years. During that time, an instrument design was developed and built.

Then comes integration onto the spacecraft and launch, which will be approximately a year for the GOLD mission. Development of the ground systems needed to support the mission during orbit operations, which are currently funded for two years, began with receiving funding, and will continue through the beginning of on orbit operations.

There is a possibility that NASA will fund an extension of the operations beyond the first two years, and we plan to propose for that extension.

To learn more about hosted payloads and their benefits, check out SES Space and Defense’s whitepaper entitled, “What is a Hosted Payload” or watch the Hosted Payloads Video here.

The post What do you need to start a hosted payload program at a university? appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

The extremely successful CHIRP program was invaluable in that it illustrated how hosted payloads can be a viable and more cost effective path into space for government agencies and branches of the military. CHIRP provided a blueprint for saving money and expediting government initiatives.

And now, even more government agencies are hitching a ride to space by placing their payloads onto the satellites of commercial satellite services providers.

In early April, SES Space and Defense announced that the University of Colorado and NASA would fund a payload aboard the SES-14 satellite. This Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission is designed to revolutionize the understanding of the space environment by filling the critical gap in knowledge of Sun-Earth connections.

Then, just a week later it was announced that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would pay to host a payload on board SES-15. This Wide Area Augmentation Systems (WAAS) hosted payload is designed to serve as an air navigation aid developed by the FAA to augment the Global Positioning Systems (GPS), with the goal of improving its accuracy, integrity and availability.

Why are hosted payloads such an effective and efficient alternative to building and launching dedicated government satellites? To get a detailed answer to that question, we sat down with Pete Hoene, the CEO of SES Space and Defense.

In the following video, Pete discusses why commercial satellite communications are so essential for the federal government and military today, how the CHIRP program was able to meet a majority of Air Force objectives for approximately 15 percent of the cost, and why hosted payload programs inherently deliver cost savings to the federal government.

Here is what Pete had to say:

For additional information on hosted payloads, their benefits to the federal government and how they can provide economical access to space for government agencies and branches of the military, download the SES hosted payload white paper by clicking HERE. Or, read the following hosted payload resources: 

SES To Host NASA Payload on SES-14

SES To Host WAAS Payload On SES-15

Learn about the Hosted Payload Alliance

CHIRP featured in Beam Magazine

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