from the and-please-check-the-oil-while-you're-there dept.
NASA will spend up to $127 million on the development of Restore-L, a robotic spacecraft intended to repair and refuel satellites in orbit. The contract could help Space Systems Loral launch a satellite servicing business:
A new contract from NASA to build the agency's Restore-L satellite servicing spacecraft could bring Space Systems Loral that much closer to launching its own satellite servicing business.
NASA awarded the contract to SSL Dec. 5, tasking the company with supplying a chassis, hardware and services for the mission. The Palo Alto, California-based satellite builder is responsible for supporting integration, test, launch and operations.
The purpose of Restore-L is to demonstrate the ability to refuel a satellite in orbit, including those not designed to have their fuel tanks opened in space. In-orbit refueling has the potential to extend the lives of otherwise healthy spacecraft that have exhausted their propellants.
SSL, with parent company MDA of Canada, has been actively entertaining the notion of launching a commercial in-orbit servicing business, one that would combine MDA's past experience from the almost-launched Space Infrastructure Services system in the early 2010s with SSL's knowledge of satellite manufacturing. Steve Oldham, the former president of MDA's Space Infrastructure Services division who currently leads strategic business development at SSL, said the company has interest from prospective customers in using an SSL-built servicer, and that the MDA board of directors expects to make a decision on relaunching such a business through SSL in the very near future.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:25AM
nigger nigger nigger nigger
(Score: 1) by Beanlover on Thursday December 08 2016, @08:38PM
...the underwhelming number of *actual* comments on this post is why there are more posts about political stories on this site currently...for anyone wondering.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09 2016, @02:37AM
I'm not sure how you build a business doing this, unless that business was basically propped up by the government. Who is the customer? Nothing flying has anything like a universal fueling port to hook up to. It makes for a neat tech demo, but you're not going to be self-sustainable with that. Your biggest customers might be the big telecommunications companies who have the really big satellites out in Geo. You have to sell it to them that it is worthwhile to add fuel and extend the lifetime of a satellite rather than build and launch a new one. But those guys are really good at stamping those things out, in the first place. There is a lot of risk involved in doing it in the first place. What happens when it rams into it and causes damage. Who pays for that? Who pays for getting a new fuel tank into orbit and out to the proper orbit? If you're billing all of that to the customer, including the insurance premiums in case you eff it up, then you're not much ahead of stamping out a brand new one and launching it. If you're not charging for all of that and you're just charging for the fuel, then you'll either go broke real fast, or someone is keeping you afloat.
This is not a unique concept [darpa.mil]. On the skin, it looks a lot like NASA pulling one of its PR stunts they do from time to time. Realize that something interesting is going on elsewhere, slap some PowerPoint slides together of a concept, and release it with a lot of PR to make it look like you are in the forefront of the new idea.