Low cost deployment of auxiliary payloads

The lowering cost of access to space has been and will continue to be of great importance for the spacecraft community. The use of auxiliary payloads on launch vehicles has had limited success in lowering the cost of transportation to space. An increasing number of satellites, spacecraft, and other payloads with mass less than 500 kg (recognized by the industry as a logical breakpoint for auxiliary payloads) require lower cost launch services in order to stay within tightening budget constraints. Today, these payloads pay a disproportionate cost for launch per kilogram of mass as compared to much larger payloads that purchase the entire launch vehicle. This is especially true for one- or few-of-a-kind small satellites. Transportation costs for smaller satellites must be brought into a more reasonable balance with satellite development costs. Transportation costs for these smaller payloads or spacecraft should at least approximate the actual build costs of the payloads, just as they do for the larger commercial communications satellites. This paper will outline how Space Operations International (SOI), brings economies of scale and the corresponding price reductions to auxiliary payloads. The ability to acquire launch capability for smaller payloads at lower prices than historically available is achieved by agreements with a wide variety of launch vehicle suppliers. Agreements are currently in place for Athena, Atlas II, Atlas III, Atlas V, Delta II, Delta III, Delta IV, Kistler K-1 and Proton. Detailed interface development is well under way for auxiliary payloads on all of these launch vehicles. This paper details auxiliary payload accommodation and orbit insertion capability.