Hosted payload

January 14, 2017: the first ten Iridium NEXT satellites lift off carrying Aireon's ADS-B receivers, built to track aircraft from orbit. 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: 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. The delicate question is the common event, where a platform failure destroys both interests at once. A governance constraint adds to it: the guest has no say over mission conduct or over operating decisions that may worsen its own exposure.