• Col. David Anhalt
  • Space Systems/Loral
  • 108 Surge Building
  • 4:00 p.m.
  • Faculty Host: Dr. Troy Henderson

Hosted payloads are government mission capabilities that are integrated on commercial communication satellites.  A government hosted payload performs specific government missions using resources provided by the commercial host platform.

Mr. Anhalt will speak about the role commercial satellites can play in hosting science payloads for NASA and military payloads for the Department of Defense.  Concepts for commercially hosted payloads are part of a broader trend by government to increasingly rely on the commercial space sector for more of their goods and services.  Federal budget pressures are forcing both the civil and national security sector to consider the economic advantages of leveraging the vibrant, productive commercial space sector.

The Space Age has spawned three distinct sectors of space activities:  civil, national security, and commercial.  While each sector trains their young professionals at the same engineering and business schools and often rotates talent in mid-career, the three sectors have nevertheless developed distinctly different cultures, business approaches, and preferences for solving their core problems.

Architecture has been defined as “the structure – in terms of components, connections, and constraints – of a product, process, or element.” (Dr. Eberhardt Rechtin, and Mark W. Maier, The Art of Systems Architecting.)  By using the lens of systems architecture the speaker will identify underlying technical, programmatic and policy issues that impact the commercial hosting enterprise. 

Additionally, the speaker will be available to answer question about the roles engineers play at satellite manufacturing companies like Space Systems/Loral in mission design, spacecraft development, manufacturing, test, operations and business development.