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Space Tugboat to Refuel Satellites

Faeton sent in this article about a proposed space tugboat to refuel aging satellites. Looks like they're just going to bolt on some extra thrusters with a new fuel supply, guidance system, etc.

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  1. Re:What ever happened to ion drives? by zenyu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ION drives require power. The idea is to design newer satelites with larger solar arrays so they can last 20 years up there instead of 10. If you're going to add a booster you don't want it to have solar panels because they would be unlikely to work with all those old satelites without a redesign based on where the existing solar panels are on each one. Plus it might not make sense economically to add a 20 year propulsion system to a satelite with 10 years left in it.

    As for wanting a "real tugboat" that attaches to multiple satelites... well the biggest problem is the docking, when we've had these working long enough to have confidence in automatic docking, then we can think about a general purpose tugboat. Remember it would have to dock with each satelite many times over a 10 year span, and transit between all the satelites it wants to service. Perhaps an ion based one could have a 25-30 year life span, but then you'd be testing two undertested technologies at once instead of just the docking. I'm not even sure they should be allowed to do this in geosynchronus orbit before it is tested in other less essential orbits; it's going to cost $$$ for the shuttle to go up there and clean up the mess when one of these fails.