A third party's instrument carried on a satellite operated by someone else, an arrangement that separates ownership of the instrument from ownership of the platform.
A hosted payload is an instrument belonging to a third party, carried on a commercial satellite it neither owns nor operates, in exchange for a contribution to launch and operating costs. The arrangement sharply lowers the cost of reaching orbit for scientific or government missions that would not justify a dedicated satellite, and it fills the host's spare mass and power. In return it creates an unusual structure of insurable interests, since two parties bear distinct losses in one object: the host loses an asset and a revenue stream, the guest loses a mission whose value often bears no relation to the share of cost it paid. Contracts handle that asymmetry through reciprocal waivers of recourse and separate policies, with the guest insuring its own payload under its own limit, and the delicate question is the common event, where a platform failure destroys both interests at once. A governance constraint compounds it, since the guest has no say over mission conduct or over operating decisions that may worsen its own exposure.
The United States Air Force CHIRP infrared warning sensor flew as a hosted payload on the commercial satellite SES-2, launched in September 2011, at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated spacecraft.
hosted payload, charge utile invitée, passager embarqué