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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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The title calls this a "tugboat", but as far as I can see from the article, it is really just an extra fuel tank and set of rockets.
A real tugboat would be very cool indeed -- something which could grab a satellite, move it up back into the correct orbit, and then let go and move on to the next satellite -- but it looks like this is rather less so.
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Wha? They're using them:
from http://www.orbitalrecovery.com/faq.html
Attitude control for the SLES and the telecommunications satellite to which it is mated is handled by ion thruster packs mounted on deployable booms. These booms are extended to provide sufficient thruster impulse for control of the SLES/telecom satellite combination.
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.
Actually the shuttle is incapable or reaching GeoSynch orbit w/o substantional modifications - and dangerous ones (like a fuel tank in cargo bay, extra SRB, etc) or refueling at the ISS if that ever becomes a possibility. The highest altitude a shuttle has ever achieved, IIRC, is around 490 miles.
So if there really was a mess in GeoSynch they would just be screwed...
Both of the articles mentioned that fuel is not the only problem, the rest of the satellite has degraded as well. So, why don't they come up with a good garbage collection method to periodically get rid of the old sattelites. This could also partially answer the problem that it's starting to be pretty crowded there in the orbit already.
The highest altitude a shuttle has ever achieved, IIRC, is around 490 miles.
Rubbish. I saw a documentary only last week where a suttle left the Earth's orbit and went thousands of miles out into space to land on an asteroid. They didn't have extra fuel tanks in teh cargo bay eitehr, cos it was full of these neat, large-wheeled, big trucks fitted with drills and machien guns and everything - they could even jump mile wide cnayons. You just ask the leader of the mission, Harry S. Stamper , a rough-neck, Texas oil man and his team of expert oil drillers if it ain't so!
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