propaganda. "TASS has revealed that the Soviets have launched an ant into orbit around Planet X …
yadda yadda." I'm still mad at the commies for letting Laika die.
This is actually just as important to future combat as aerial refueling is to modern air combat. A surveillance satellite that can be autonomously refueled can be retasked and moved far more frequently, without having an hard per-unit limit on how many moves it can make.
A *combat* satellite could be reloaded and resupplied by almost the same method.
Future combat in space. And present combat in space too - since one of two satellites was designed and built and then launched 5 years ago.
But.
A stable, close robot-controlled remote rendezvous is necessary for refueling rendezvous and hookup, but is not necessarily a successful refueling. Yet.