A standardized interface has been developed for the integration and accommodation of secondary payloads on to Orbital Sciences Corporation's StarBus line of GEO-based commercial communications satellites. This standardized interface through hardware adaptations and methodology incorporates all the major subsystems of the spacecraft and will allow for a variety of hosted secondary payloads to be accommodated while not interfering with the "spacecraft product line" manufacturing scheme common on commercial communications satellites. Indeed the low cost and fast schedules, typically two years from contract start to launch, for commercial communications satellites relies upon a high level of design standardization and exacting heritage. The Hosted Payloads interface as developed and exercised on the StarBus makes the hosted payload components look like the usual communications components that are routinely comprise the standard bent-pipe type of communications payload architecture - the kind of payload that the host spacecraft is optimized to carry. Furthermore the hosted payload accommodation methodology has been developed to flow into the timeline of the host spacecraft while still allowing for a small degree of margin. Being able to reconcile the aggressive development process of a commercial communications satellites with the more elongated process seen in a remote sensing payload is one necessary step to secure a viable future of commercially hosted payloads.

Date Published: 25 August 2008
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 7087, Remote Sensing System Engineering, 70870R (25 August 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.801064

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7087:
Remote Sensing System Engineering
Philip E. Ardanuy; Jeffery J. Puschell, Editor(s)