The Air Force reorganized its organization that handles hosted payloads, or government sensors that catch rides on commercial satellite buses, according to a service official.
Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Brykowytch said Oct. 15 the “XR” organization that used to reside within Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (AFSMC) at Los Angeles AFB, Calif., was merged with an organization out of Kirtland AFB, N.M., formerly known as “SE.” The merged organization is known as “AD,” Brykowytch said.
Brykowytch is former chief of “XR,” informally known as the Hosted Payload Office, and is now chief of the capabilities, integration and transition division within AFSMC. Brykowytch said the “AD” structure stood up as recently as the week of Oct. 6. His remarks came at the Hosted Payload and Small Sat Summit in Washington, which was produced by Defense Daily parent company Access Intelligence LLC.
The Air Force in July awarded its first contract under its Hosted Payload Solutions (HoPS) indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract, a rapid and flexible means for the government to acquire commercial hosting capabilities for government payloads. The contract is designed to create a pool of qualified vendors to meet the government’s needs for various missions.
The first contract awarded under HoPS was TEMPO, or Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution. TEMPO is a NASA contract to monitor atmospheric pollution covering most of North America, from Mexico City to the Canadian tar/oil sands, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans hourly and at high-spatial resolution. Boeing [BA], Orbital Sciences [ORB] and Space Systems/Loral (SSL) were awarded study contracts for TEMPO.