The era of usability in space has begun

A large passenger car-sized spacecraft moved about 36,000 km above the earth’s surface to an active 6-ton satellite on Monday afternoon. The distance between the two vehicles is slow, slow so slow.

There was nothing wrong with the satellite, which is 17 years old and owned by Intelsat. Throughout Wednesday, it continued to deliver broadband and other media services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. But it received desperately little fuel to maintain its position, and Intelsat would soon have to send the vehicle to a ‘graveyard’ lane.

Intelsat has therefore contracted with Northrop Grumman to test its new life extension services. This led to the launch of Northrop’s “Mission Extension Vehicle-2” last year, which uses fuel-sucking electric propulsion to approach the orbit of Intelsat 10-02 and dock with the active satellite on Wednesday. As a result of this pairing, the satellite will now live on for another five years.

Jean-Luc Froeliger, vice president of space, space systems engineering and operations for Intelsat, said the cost of the service is far less than the value of five additional satellite services. By waiting five years, Intelsat could also replace the 10-02 satellite with a more modern, efficient vehicle. “For us, it’s a win-win,” he said during a teleconference with reporters. “This extension for 10-02 is very valuable to us.”

It’s also a win for Northrop Grumman. The company made history a year ago when its first mission expansion vehicle got stuck on another Intelsat satellite, moved it from a cemetery orbit, switched on and put back into active service. No commercial spacecraft has ever been stuck in orbit before. The difference Monday is that the control vehicle moored with an active satellite in a busier orbit. Both of the mission expansion vehicles will be released from their Intelsat targets in 2025 and move to other satellites and have a functional lifespan until 2035.

Northrop sold the first two mission expansion missions to a commercial customer, Intelsat. However, the company expects that a large part of its future business may come from governments that want to protect and extend the life of their most valuable assets in space.

“Government interest is growing as they see this capability turn out,” said Tom Wilson, vice president of Northrop Grumman and president of its subsidiary SpaceLogistics. “We are about to make some bigger initiatives with them.”

This successful second mission indicates that Northrop has taken a first step towards its goal of providing a range of satellite services. It has now shown that there is an encounter and docking and has the ability to deliver power and mobility to satellites. But that’s just the beginning of what’s possible with in-service service, Wilson said.

In 2024, Northrop plans to launch a “Mission Robotic Vehicle” that can provide basic inspection and repair services and deploy mission expansion poles to satellites. Following this, the company plans to develop fillers and the removal of debris from the vicinity of high-value satellites. Finally, in the 2030s, the company intends to launch the assembly and manufacturing capabilities in the track.

Over the past decade, SpaceX has radically changed the paradigm of launch from that of consumable rockets to a future in which at least the first phases of such boosters are reused. This reduces launch costs and allows companies to place more and more satellites in different orbits around the earth. As this environment becomes cluttered, the responsible thing is to more actively replenish, recycle and throw away satellites. Northrop Grumman has made significant progress toward such a future of satellite services. As a result, reusability is now moving into space.