CHIRP Delay Holds Lessons for U.S. Air Force, Industry

摘要

The first U.S. Air Force sensor to be launched as a hosted payload aboard a commercial telecommunications satellite is more than a year late because the Air Force underestimated the complexity of developing the sensor and mating it to its satellite host, Air Force and industry officials said Sept. 12.The delays in developing the sensor, an experimental missile-launch tracker called the Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (CHIRP), added costs to the program and obliged the commercial satellite operator hosting CHIRP to switch the sensor from one satellite to another one planned for a later launch.