Tag: Satellite Servicing
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SES Signs Deal for Europe’s First Commercial Satellite Life-Extension Mission
Satellite operator SES has signed an agreement with French startup Infinite Orbits for a life-extension mission involving one geostationary satellite, marking the first commercial satellite life-extension operation in Europe, the companies said on Thursday. The mission will use Endurance™, a 750kg servicing vehicle developed by Infinite Orbits to provide in-orbit support functions including station keeping,…
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Astroscale aced the world’s first rendezvous with a piece of space junk
There’s a scene in the film Interstellar where Matthew McConaughey’s character flies his spaceplane up to meet a mothership spinning out of control. The protagonist rises to the challenge with a polished piece of piloting and successfully links up with his objective. Real life, of course, isn’t quite this dramatic. Slow down that spin to a…
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NASA cancels a multibillion-dollar satellite servicing demo mission
NASA has canceled an over-budget, behind-schedule mission to demonstrate robotic satellite servicing technology in orbit, pulling the plug on a project that has cost $1.5 billion and probably would have cost nearly $1 billion more to get to the launch pad. The On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing 1 mission, known as OSAM-1, would have grappled…
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Mission Extension Vehicles succeed as Northrop Grumman works on future servicing/debris clean-up craft
With the successful docking of Mission Extension Vehicle 2, or MEV-2, to the Intelsat 10-02 satellite last month, Northrop Grumman not only repeated the task of successfully attaching one of their MEV spacecraft to a functioning satellite but also successfully proved the ability to grab a still-transmitting telecommunications satellite without disrupting service. The success of…
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Intelsat satellite resumes operations after docking of robotic servicer
The MEV 1 satellite captured this image of Intelsat 901 in February as it approached the aging communications satellite more than 22,000 miles above Earth. Credit: Northrop Grumman An Intelsat communications spacecraft running low on fuel has resumed commercial operations more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the Atlantic Ocean after getting an assist…
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Budget proposal puts NASA satellite servicing mission in doubt
Artist’s concept of the Restore-L spacecraft (left) with the Landsat 7 satellite (right) for an in-orbit refueling demonstration. Credit: Space Systems/Loral NASA plans to shelve a robotic demonstration mission to refuel an aging Landsat Earth-imaging observatory and join forces with the private sector and a U.S. military research and development agency in a public-private partnership…
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NASA selects builder for robotic satellite servicing craft
Artist’s concept of the Restore-L spacecraft (left) with the Landsat 7 satellite (right) for an in-orbit refueling demonstration. Credit: Space Systems/Loral NASA has a builder to construct a five-ton spacecraft to catch up with the aging Landsat 7 Earth observation satellite and refuel it in 2020, employing robotic tools mastered in years of rehearsals on…