Inside the High-Tech Effort to Keep Satellites Alive

A two-armed space robot blasted off on a private salvage operation Tuesday to slap life-extending jetpacks on old satellites running low on fuel thousands of miles up. It's the second satellite-saving mission to launch this month: Another company's three-armed spacecraft rocketed into orbit on July 3 to boost NASA's Swift Observatory so it doesn't crash to Earth this fall. As the AP reports, it's all part of a growing, money-saving effort to keep spacecraft running as long as possible.

Launched by SpaceX on Tuesday, Northrop Grumman's mission robotic vehicle (MRV) and its jetpacks will spend the next year angling into the proper orbit 22,300 miles above Earth, where hundreds of satellites orbit. Once in place by mid-2027, the minivan-sized spacecraft will use its 10-foot arms to attach a jetpack to an aging communication satellite. Then it will zip off to two more satellites in need.

For its debut flight, the spacecraft carried three electric-propelled jetpacks that were programmed to peel away following liftoff and, like the MRV, use their own xenon gas thrusters to get to the desired orbit. The jetpacks will wait for the robot to grab them, one at a time, and plug them into their designated satellites. Each jetpack is the size of a washing machine and will provide the necessary oomph for an out-of-gas satellite to keep operating for several more years instead of retiring. If it works, it will be a boon for satellite operators SES of Luxembourg and Optus of Australia, saving them millions of dollars in replacement costs.

This is Northrop Grumman's latest foray into the satellite-servicing business. In 2019 and again in 2020, the company launched a pair of spacecraft that latched onto faltering communication satellites and steered them, providing extra years of life. Northrop Grumman designed its new robotic helpers to be even more resourceful. The company envisions future versions repairing and relocating live satellites, and even latching onto dead ones for removal from highly trafficked orbits. Read the full piece for more on the earlier July launch.