Posted on 10/06/2019 9:30:35 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Northrop Grumman and NASA are launching a "first-of-its-kind" refueling vessel, the Mission Extension Vehicle, aboard a Russian rocket on October 9th. The inaugural MEV-1 will dock with an Intelsat satellite in three months' time and provide life-extending services over five years. After that, it should be free to help other satellites -- it'll still have 10 years' worth of fuel.
A second spacecraft, MEV-2, will help another Intelsat satellite in 2020 and should have the same amount of leftover fuel. Both MEVs are flexible, too. They can dock with 80 percent of current geostationary satellites, even if they weren't designed for servicing.
(Excerpt) Read more at engadget.com ...
*ping*
This is a big deal, especially if the missions can include not just refueling but maintenance and upgrades. I think it would be a bigger deal if it were put into orbit on an American launch vehicle.
I’m guessing that this kind of capability has already been used to service the very large NRO SIGINT sats in geo orbit ...if it hasn’t, then what was the breakdown?
Probably could also be used to gather up unwanted ones and defuel them?
Hmm. Might explain the very long X-37 missions.
Have American satellites been designed to be refueled in orbit?
Have they been designed for automated, robotic service in orbit?
When did this start?
We’re letting Russia launch our Intelsat servicing vessels?
Don’t be surprised if those Intelsats are involved in accidents or “fail” at a critical time.
The Northrop (Orbital) Mission Extension Vehicle DOES NOT REFUEL the client spacecraft. It latches on to spacecraft that have almost exhausted their fuel and provides station-keeping service for them so that they can continue to generate communications revenue for additional years. An actual first full scale refueling mission is in development by NASA and Maxar to demonstrate the technology on the old Landsat 7 satellite. Early docking and liquid transfer in-space experiments were done by DARPA over a decade ago.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if America could build its own rockets and such, instead of having to pay the godless Russians to drive us around in what is essentially a 40-year-old Soviet launch vehicle?
Thanks fieldmarshaldj. Of course, the booster that launches it will cost more than a dozen new satellites, but repeat over and over after me, *that's* not a subsidy!!!!
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