Orbital Express Launches Tonight

airshowfan writes "When a geosynchronous satellite is launched into space, no human ever gets to touch it again. This means that, other than for minor software issues, there is no way to fix it if it breaks, so it has to work perfectly, almost autonomously, for 20 years non-stop. There is also no way to refuel it once it's out of thruster fuel, the reason why it can't last more than 20 years even if it gets to that mark working very well, with batteries and solar cells still going, which is often the case. If only there were a robotic spacecraft in geostationary orbit that could change broken satellite components and refuel those older satellites, then satellites would be a lot less risky and would last a lot longer. Does this robotic spacecraft mechanic sound like science fiction? It launches tonight."

Comments

Woot

[SCPRedMage]

Good ol' 45th Space Wing...

Re:Woot

[Anonymous Coward]

"There is also no way to refuel it once it's out of thruster fuel, the reason why it can't last more than 20 years even if it gets to that mark working very well, with batteries and solar cells still going, which is often the case."

Thanks slashdot, for one of the most grotesque and ambiguous run-on sentences I have seen in a damn long time.

PS 3 anonymous.

Re:Woot

[porl]

Sometimes run-on sentences are not as bad as some people think, although there are definitely times when they would be correct in saying that run-on sentences are 'grotesque' or 'ambiguous' (these are, of course, both subjective terms, and should be treated as such), but these thoughts are not the only thoughts that can be had of run-on sentences, and you should not assume that everyone else believes that run-on sentences are grotesque and ambiguous, because other people have feelings too and you shouldn't assume that your opinion is more important than theirs, because they might think otherwise, and that is how arguments start.

Re:Woot

[DoraLives]

Pretty shoot.

Watched it from the driveway of the house here in South Patrick Shores.

Clear as a bell, and the lox/kerosene flame of the first stage was a beautiful brilliant orange coming out of the engine, tapering away to a bluish tip. It arced into the cloudless sky and went right between the two endmost bowl stars of the little dipper as I watched through binoculars. Not much rumble. Along toward the end of the first stage burn, it started emitting these pale streamers of exhaust that flared out far away from the bright light of the engine. Very beautiful. And then at MECO, a rapidly widening black circle seemed to emanate from where the doused flame was a split second before, and then grew and expanded till it gobbled up the last little bit of the streamers. Weird effect. Never seen one do anything quite like that before. After a short pause, another puff of gas, and then the RL-10 kicked into gear as a star-like pinpoint of white light. With the northern launch azimuth, the apparent motion across the sky slowed down to a crawl as the slowly fading pinpoint seemed to drift horizonward in ever-increasingly slow motion. Finally lost it visually somewhere around T-plus nine or ten minutes, just over the roof of the house. By then it was getting out there, more or less a thousand miles away from where I leaned against my car in the driveway to help steady the binocs.

Like I said earlier, "Pretty shoot."

Re:Woot

[Coz]

I watched the webcast. Never saw an Atlas V before - impressive. They kicked over to a "visualization" derived from the live telemetry after first-stage MECO - a good use of computing cycles.

Re:Woot

[livewire98801]

Wonder if it would be possible to use this kind of 'droid to knock sattelites out of orbit with an extra bit of thrust when they're beyond repair. I don't know the logistics, but it seems to be a way to combat the volume of junk that's building up in orbit. . .

Re:Woot

[compro01]

Thanks slashdot, for one of the most grotesque and ambiguous run-on sentences I have seen in a damn long time.

you should see some of the stuff written by a former classmate of mine. you'd think they guy's first language was Latin. he'd write sentences over a full page long.

Re:Woot

[flyingsquid]

How about kicking other people's satellites out of orbit... or placing an explosive charge on them which can be detonated at will, if a war flares up at some point in the future.

This might sound a bit tinfoil-hat, but the USAF has a history of working on antisatellite warfare, and space superiority is probably going to be as important to the 21st-century battlefield as air superiority was to the 20th century. If you can use space to navigate, communicate, and spy- and deny your enemy the same ability- then you've got a major advantage on the battlefield.

Re:Woot

[livewire98801]

My guess is that your solution already exists. I'm sure it would be classified, but the concept of China (or USSR, depending on how old the program is) deploying nukes or some kind of "God's hammer" weapon is far too great a risk to ignore.

My thought is to get junk out of orbit and into a solar free-fall somehow so that it stops the orbital junkyard we've got going on before it reaches critical mass.

Re:Woot

[Hegh]

I'm sure something like that could work. Although...instead of nudging the other satellites out of orbit, which would use fuel, perhaps carry along a store of small adhesive rocket engines. These could be affixed to dead objects to push them out of orbit (either by slowing them or by pushing them towards the planet). Not sure how much force would be required for your average satellite, though, but it's probably more than an Estes model rocket engine would provide...

Re:Woot

[NormalVisual]

I agree - it was quite nice, although I was watching it from 40 miles west in Seminole County. It seemed to take forever getting off the pad without the benefit of SRBs. The staging was a bit difficult to see through the haze, and I could just barely make out the second stage ignition as a dim white star.

Being the true geek I am, I went back in and watched the webcast for another 40 minutes as the launch vehicle proceeded to spew satellites all over the place. :-)

Re:Woot

[steelshadow]

Ouch. The last thing you want to do is blow up a satellite with explosives. We already have a potentially huge problem with space debris and producing another few hundred bits flying around isn't going to help. Remember the Chinese test in January? Some experts are worried we're reaching a critical mass of junk which will cause a chain reaction that will make the orbital space unusable.

Re:Woot

[Guignol]

Oh wow, I just didn't get your parent's comment. really didn't. I don't speak english very well and I tend to get (or misunderstand) vocabulary thanks to the context. I had no idea what run-on meant and I couldn't get it from the context (I was looking for something obviously wrong in it but.... I didn't find anything weird about it)
Then I sort of got it from its first answer, but I wasn't yet too sure... I was still looking at some possible other kinds of mistakes, logic errors mostly.
Thank you for clarifying that up, I have been told already to fall in your classmate's category but I always took it as unimportant/funny/not really meant comments (but I did, did something about it I review my mails to those guys and 'clarify (?)' them several times breaking up sentences and 'making up paragraphs' before hitting the send button (I'm doing the same thing now posting here)). For some reason your answer to your parent and your sibling's make me feel it's more of an issue than I had previously cared to think:I really don't see anything wrong in this sentence you make fun of !!!
Oh well...
Cheers

Re:Woot

[jeff4747]

How about kicking other people's satellites out of orbit

That doesn't require anything tricky. You fire a rocket with a rudimentary radar seeking head at the satellite, much like an air-to-air missile. The USAF developed such weapons a few decades ago, but AFAIK they've never been seriously tested or deployed...probably because it's so easy.

Docking is hard because you don't want to damage either spacecraft. Destruction is easy.

Re:Woot

[compro01]

eh, it's more of an example on the differance between languages. appearently, extremely long sentances are proper form in latin, but is not proper in english for some reason.

i personally don't particularly mind it, i have a tendancy to sometimes do it myself, with sentances a few lines long, though not to the extent of the classmate i mentioned.

Orbital Express Launches Tonight

[Original Replica]

where did they find the hot cyclops to pilot it?

pun intended.

[User 956]

Does this robotic spacecraft mechanic sound like science fiction?

From science fiction? I suppose I say if they are not, someone will say they Are Too.

Re:pun intended.

[@madeus]

See, three posts in and already people are making with the Star Wars jokes.

Re:pun intended.

[LordEd]

Maybe if the moderators stopped rewarding posters for old, weathered jokes, others would be forced to try new jokes. It is because of this type of lame humor that we go without seeing something truly original.

You have been warned.

Re:pun intended.

[Anomolous Cowturd]

I get mod points far too often... it's annoying... but I only mod up stuff that makes me grin or produce audible laughter. Doesn't happen often. No points for witless humour.

There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Timesprout]

Someone must have missed all those Hubble missions.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[fruity_pebbles]

Someone must have missed all those Hubble missions.

Someone must have missed that Hubble is not in geosynchronous orbit.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone must have missed that they're talking about geosynchronous satellites in this article, which Hubble(although shiny) is not.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[zedturtle]

Dude, there's more than just a couple of miles between the Hubble's orbit and geostationary.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Timesprout]

A mere technicality.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Deadstick]

Roughly a 22,000 mile technicality.

rj

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[AKAImBatman]

Roughly a 22,000 mile technicality.

Technically distance is just a technicality. For the real differences, let's talk Delta V.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[monopole]

The fun bit with the Hubble missions is that, if I remember correctly, they cost as much as launching 10 Hubble replacements.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Deadstick]

Quite so, but you have to start somewhere...;-)

rj

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas, there is no mod category for "doesn't understand that it's a hell of a lot hard to achieve a stable geosynchronous orbit than it is to achieve a low earth orbit, and there's no way in hell that the Space Shuttle will ever make it to geosynchronous orbit" -1.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[thrillseeker]

Quite so, but you have to start somewhere...;-)

It's all relative.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[AKAImBatman]

Indeed. :-)

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[rbanffy]

I think that if they filled the cargo bay with some non-chemical thrusters it could, but most probably it would take a couple months to get there.

It would also be a quite remarkable achievement of engineering (building and powering it would not be trivial), stupidity (it's a shuttle, FFS), politics (for spending money on the shuttle) and pointlessness (it _is_ pointless to make a manned mission reach stationary orbit in months)

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[AlexanderDitto]

It seemed so much smaller in metric...

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Coz]

Not to mention that in the months of traversing the Van Allen belts the astronauts, the shuttle avionics, and any thing else susceptible to radiation will get fried.

There's a darn good reason the Apollo missions blew through MEO quickly. The environment isn't very nice for humans between the lower Van Allen and GEO.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[rbanffy]

Good point. Add to the list "about half the mass of the shuttle in shielding that could be used as propellant as far as you don't use too much of it". They could use nuclear-thermal propulsion, but good luck with the paperwork necessary for flying a nuclear reactor that size into space. Hell. _I_ would be worried having such a device going up on a shuttle. The failure-rate is way too high for that kind of stuff.

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Coz]

THIS is why I read Slashdot... not for the keen, insightful commentary, or the devilish, bleeding-edge wit... no, it's for the community to geek out with.

Now, if we were to design such a mission... no, no, no. Just let it die. The Shuttle's the wrong thing to take out of LEO.

Ares/Orion, now....

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Scootesti]

Seemed smaller in metric huh?

1 Mile = 1.6km.

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."

Re:There is no way to fix it if it breaks?

[Mattcelt]

Just where to do think geosync is??

It took the Apollo astronauts about two days to get to the MOON.

From the earth to the moon:~240 000 miles.
From the earth to geosync : ~26 000 miles.

So, how many MONTHS do you think it would take to get to Geosynchronous orbit...?

Breakdown

[ishamael69]

But, what happens when the "robotic spacecraft mechanic" breaks down?

Re:Breakdown

[Sciros]

Duuh that's what Green Lantern rings are for.

Re:Breakdown

[eli pabst]

Duh, that's what the robotic spacecraft mechanic mechanic is for. It launches next year.

Re:Breakdown

[Toba82]

Simple solution: launch two of them, so they can repair each other if they die. Think RAID with a hot spare for satellites.

Re:Breakdown

[Darlantan]

Hot spare?

So you're saying one of the repairbots will be a fembot? Sweet...until they hook up and spawn a lot of minibots and take over the world...FROM SPACE!

Re:Breakdown

[SydShamino]

After that it's just turtles all the way down.

who supplies parts to it?

[petes_PoV]

and where does it get it's spares from when they run out - or it needs fixing?

Re:who supplies parts to it?

[MichaelSmith]

where does it get it's spares from when they run out

Satellites from competing companies?

Re:who supplies parts to it?

[symbolset]

The lowest bidder.

duh.

Re:who supplies parts to it?

[alexfeig]

Halliburton

Re:who supplies parts to it?

[Thuktun]

You owe me a new monitor. Diet Dew does not mix well with electronics.

Who will refuel it?

[dgatwood]

The fuel has to come from somewhere. Repairing satellites is one thing. Refueling them is something else entirely.

Re:Who will refuel it?

[Goaway]

Oh man, they must have totally forgotten about that! Good thing you caught it in time, there's still a chance to stop the launch!

Re:Who will refuel it?

[zaydana]

I'm guessing one of the satellites has a tank containing excess fuel on board, just like a tanker truck will have a fuel tank and the big tank on the back.

Refueling in space isn't really that hard unless you are using cryogenic propellants. And in this case, the satellites use hydrazine, so its all good. I can't wait till somebody gets cryogenic propellant transfer working, because that will have so many more uses than what you can do with hydrazine.

Re:Who will refuel it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The short-term answer goes something like this: The payload on this launch is around 3500 lb of which maybe 500 lb is propellant. If this works the next load might be 500lb of parts (mostly batteries), and 3000lb of fuel. I reckon that is enough to refurbish about 21,000 lb of equipment or 5 launches worth. So the whole mess pays for itself after almost immediately. In the medium term you could do fancier things like field upgrades and stripping obsolete or dead equipment for parts and supplies.

Re:Who will refuel it?

[Rakishi]

Refueling in space isn't really that hard unless you are using cryogenic propellants. And in this case, the satellites use hydrazine, so its all good. I can't wait till somebody gets cryogenic propellant transfer working, because that will have so many more uses than what you can do with hydrazine. Do they even use cryogenic fuel on non-short term sats? I'd assume that they wouldn't hold out very well when talking about years of sitting in a tank.

Re:Who will refuel it?

[FleaPlus]

The fuel has to come from somewhere. Repairing satellites is one thing. Refueling them is something else entirely.

Huh? If anything, refueling is easier than repairing. Refueling is a process which can be potentially automated and can be standardized. Repairing almost certainly requires human intervention, and every repair problem has a different solution.

Re:Who will refuel it?

[zaydana]

IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist), but I doubt they'd really use cryogenic fuel at all on most sats. Its way too complex. The uses I was referring to are more in the human spaceflight area, or where you need a higher ISP, or where you need to please the greenies (its going to happen one day). The type of stuff that we can't really do today that due to the weight of fuel at launch, which would be made way cheaper once you can launch propellant on a separate rocket.

Re:Who will refuel it?

[Talchas]

But repairs may not need any items from earth (we can hope) - just moving parts around + stuff. The fuel has to get up there, whether its inside the normal satellite or the repair satellite, and the energy cost is the same either way. It still could help, as if you launch one with fuel for many sats, it could extend their lifetimes a lot, but unlike with repairing it won't save as much fuel.

Re:Who will refuel it?

[Coz]

Remember, this is an EXPERIMENT. It's not designed to roam around in orbit forever, servicing whatever satellites it meets, that look nice, that have "compatible adapters"... Orbital Express is a mission with 2 satellites, designed to interoperate, and the target (NextSat) basically sits there stable while the active vehicle (ASTRO) does all the hard work. They're not kicking off a business of servicing satellites - they're proving it can be done, and how hard it will be.

The business case for on-orbit refuelling I leave to simple Google searches.

Re:Who will refuel it?

[GrievousMistake]

It's not a "OMG they must have forgotten about that", it's a "I would like to know how they will handle that".
It seems most likely they will keep firing up expendable refuelers with most of its payload being fuel. A simple maneuverable fuel tank that could refuel a more long-lived and advanced refueler craft. Short of having a space tube or manufacturing fuel in space, they will need to shoot up a rocket to get the fuel up there anyway.
That's all rather far into the future, anyway. These seem to be just preliminary experiments.

modular

[mastershake_phd]

Wouldnt all satellites need to be modular and use similar components that are compatible to take advantage of this?

Re:modular

[susano_otter]

Wouldnt all satellites need to be modular and use similar components that are compatible to take advantage of this?

Indeed. But there's no point in building modular satellites out of similar components until after you've mastered the relevant refeuling and reparing technologies. Test missions like this one help us to figure out which modules and which components work best for this sort of thing. This isn't about fixing or refueling existing satellites at all. It's about how our whole approach to satellite design, manufacture, and mission profile will change if we can make this system work.

Re:modular

[Anonymous Coward]

That initiative is already firmly underway at a number of AFRL sites

Thank you Dennis Wingo

[QuantumG]

A visionary with a bit of get up and go. His book MOONRUSH is not only a great technical work where he outlines a theoretically sound argument for commercial exploitation of the Moon and how to do it, but is also a great visionary and inspirational work. Hopefully Orbital Express will prove that he's capable of following through.

I can't believe this guy

[TubeSteak]

"I think it' extremely valuable for the entire space arena," [USAF Lt. Col. Fred Kennedy, project manager for Orbital Express] said of Orbital Express' goal, adding that the mission could help ease the stringent requirements of long-life satellites. "Maybe you can accept a level of imperfection that will allow you to go up later and perform upgrades and perform repairs, and put more propellant onboard to get the job done. That will be a sea change in the way we do business."

Dude, wtf?
This is rocket science, not something you'd patch with Windows Update.

Which is more expensive:
A) Build the satellite correctly the first time around
B) Build the satellite cheaply & then pay to get it fixed in orbit

I know which is better for Lt. Col. Fred Kennedy's bottom line.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[susano_otter]

"The perfect is the enemy of the good."

A good geostationary satellite and a good refuel/repair satbot may be cheaper than a near-perfect satellite and no repairbot.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, option B could be MUCH cheaper. Currently, when you develop a satellite and place it in orbit, you run the risk of one small bug turning it into a billion dollar rock. If you had a repair droid, you could actually recover from small, but critical errors.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[minus_273]

"I think it' extremely valuable for the entire space arena," [USAF Lt. Col. Fred Kennedy, project manager for Orbital Express] said of Orbital Express' goal, adding that the mission could help ease the stringent requirements of long-life satellites. "Maybe you can accept a level of imperfection that will allow you to go up later and perform upgrades and perform repairs, and put more propellant onboard to get the job done. That will be a sea change in the way we do business."

Dude, wtf?
This is rocket science, not something you'd patch with Windows Update.

Which is more expensive:
A) Build the satellite correctly the first time around
B) Build the satellite cheaply and QUICKLY ; then pay to get it fixed in orbit

I know which is better for Lt. Col. Fred Kennedy's bottom line. there i fixed it for you

Re:I can't believe this guy

[QuantumG]

Yeah, cause it's not like it is expensive to build something "correctly the first time".. sheesh.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

b, you could also use to add upgraded equipment like cammeras and stuff, or expanded experiment projects, pluss no mater what launch vehicel you use you always have whieght limits, and sometimes the cool stuff you whant to do just wieghs to much.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Sean Riordan]

All of the 'long life' birds take a dozen or more years and ludicrous amounts of money to build. They are basically archaic tech before they leave the integration highbay, much less the launch pad.

The small, relatively inexpensive short lifespan spacecraft are fairly current as far as technology goes and still very viable. Being able to perform minor repairs on orbit extends that capability a good bit. The more important factor is the prerequisite of standard parts and a small number of standard and modular buses which will cut the development time way down and drop costs. Since the first Plug'n'Play type satellite is already in development, we should start seeing this as a viable option in a few years.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[MichaelSmith]

This is rocket science, not something you'd patch with Windows Update.

I don't know about comsats, etc, but many space probes and rovers have had their software patched repeatedly to improve capabilities and work around hardware problems. The best example was Galileo, where the high gain antenna failed to deploy properly and new compression algorithms were uploaded to get the most out of the low gain antenna.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

I know which is better for Lt. Col. Fred Kennedy's bottom line.

Good thing you're so smart. It would be terrible to imagine what would happen if the guy who gets paid to do this were calling the shots instead of an obvious arm-chair genious such as yourself.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Sean Riordan]

It's probably safe to say most everything in orbit with the ability to upload software updates has had software updates. That is just how things go.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Skuld-Chan]

Anyone who has actually worked with a satellite (and not just watching TV) and I've worked with a few (mostly leo) knows that satellite's have lots of bugs, some fail within the first few orbits because of charging defects. I've worked with satellites that have dead transponders (sometimes on more than one band), poor/wobbly orbits etc.

The thing that keeps a lot of these satellites operational though is they have extremely flexible software and hardware, and backup systems to help solve issues operators are having.

So I think your right - they will still have to build these to the same specs they are now, just now if you have a serious problem that jeopardizes the mission you maybe have a slight chance of fixing it.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Watson Ladd]

The dominant cost in launching is fuel. If you make two trips you end up paying a lot more than any potential design savings.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[FleaPlus]

Which is more expensive:
A) Build the satellite correctly the first time around
B) Build the satellite cheaply & then pay to get it fixed in orbit

I'm not so sure things are as clear as you're suggesting. Extreme redundancy and quality assurance costs a lot. I'm sure there are many circumstances where option B is cheaper.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

even an arm-chair general has a higher rank than a Lt. Col.

LoL WuT?

Re:I can't believe this guy

[MurphyZero]

There's never a good reason to launch dead mass on a satellite. But the economics of repair in space are just not worth it, unless the repair (or refuel-don't count fuel mass,it's not wasted mass, if it can be done) satellite mass is a small fraction of the destination satellite.

Also, in most cases you are better off launching a next-gen satellite than trying to repair an older one. By next-gen, I don't necessarily mean bleeding edge, untested technology, I typically mean reliable technology made lighter and less power hungry, particularly if you can use 2 or 3 older units for the same mass and power as 1 new unit.

Several small sats or multiple redundancies on a large one can be so much more useful than one big one with no redundancies. Fact of life is that parts of spacecraft fail, SPOF kills...True for all except for very specific tasks. An imaging system that has to see further and/or clearer than previous ones fits that requirement. Still want the redundancy on as much as possible within reason (mass, power, size, etc.)

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Iron Condor]

The best example was Galileo, where the high gain antenna failed to deploy properly and new compression algorithms were uploaded to get the most out of the low gain antenna.

Actually the best example is probably Cassini, which was launched without any viable software in the orbiter at all. Because everybody knew there were going to be seven years of coasting time to Saturn and there was no point at all in spending a whole lot of effort on writing software before the launch. Software is something you can upload later.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Nyeerrmm]

It's not a matter of being correct or incorrect, it's a matter of tolerances, precision, and risk management.

Any time you build a satellite, you're just hedging your bets. It could get blown up on launch (there's a finite chance of that, say ~5%, but thats just a guess, but i know its somewhere in that order of magnitude,) it could get hit by micrometeors, something could have gone wrong in manufacturing that got missed in inspection. Hell, if everything goes great then you have to shut it down arbitrarily at its predefined end of life, because you cant keep it on station.

Basically, what it comes down to is that any engineering requires assumptions and taking some risks. Most of the time you can assume that you'll have a chance to correct things, except of course in space-borne applications. But really my main point is that there is no perfectly engineered solution, but by requirement satellites are as close as you can get within budget. This technology simply allows you to do it for cheaper, because it means that failures can be more common because you have an option to fix it.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[roystgnr]

A) Build the satellite correctly the first time around

Good plan. If you just don't make any mistakes in the design or construction of every satellite you launch, you'll never have to fix any of them. Also, all the satellites should be manned by magic elves.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[QuantumG]

The dominate cost of satellite manufacture is design. Period. Launch costs don't even come close.

Not to mention the fact that fixing many failures in satellites wont even require a second launch.. the repair satellite sits in orbit until it is needed. Sure, refueling the repair satellite requires a launch, but not the same rated launch as a satellite.. you just need a dumb unreliable, but economical booster to lob up fuel and, maybe, spare parts. And, even then, the repair satellite uses ion engines to get around, so it doesn't need a whole lot of "fuel" as it gets most the energy for its propulsion from the sun.

A repair satellite is an excellent stepping stone to doing actual industry in space. The fact that it still costs more to send a person up to do maintenance than it does to spend years on the ground working on "perfect" systems that are unrepairable for 20 years is just insane and testimony to how little NASA's manned space program has progressed in 40 years.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[heyyou_overhere]

You are attempting to fix a satellite. Cancel or Allow?

Re:I can't believe this guy

[osu-neko]

A repair satellite is an excellent stepping stone to doing actual industry in space. The fact that it still costs more to send a person up to do maintenance than it does to spend years on the ground working on "perfect" systems that are unrepairable for 20 years is just insane and testimony to how little NASA's manned space program has progressed in 40 years.

Part of the reason for so little progress is precisely that absurd emphasis on "manned". When we can build agents so much better adapted to the environment than us, why the heck are we wasting time trying to figure out how to get us there? It's like spending billions of dollars trying to rig up a system to allow your goldfish to breath and move on land so it can fetch your slippers and morning newspaper, when you could just get a dog.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[QuantumG]

Yeah, right. We can't even make a robot that is capable of performing the tricks of a dog. Teleoperate to geosynchronous orbit? I don't think so. Getting this unit to do anything useful is a giant accomplishment, but it shouldn't be necessary, if manned space flight had been managed as something more than a PR stunt for decades.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't let your underwear out by the elves:

"Accused knicker nicker says he was in bad elf"

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_artic le_id=40208&in_page_id=2

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Alex Belits]

But the economics of repair in space are just not worth it, unless the repair (or refuel-don't count fuel mass,it's not wasted mass, if it can be done) satellite mass is a small fraction of the destination satellite.

This is very important. Satellite design and launch are costly -- design takes time and launch requires large amount of fuel and other materials. Building the satellite is nothing compared to those costs. So if the alternatives are to replace the satellite with its exact copy plus/minus some error fixed, or to launch a repair satellite, then assuming that repair satellite design is also a fixed cost (one repair satellite can fix various satellites), the cost to build can be seen as negligible, and only the difference in launch cost should be important.

On one end of the scale are small, single-function satellites -- communications relays, GPS/navigation, weather. To repair them you need a satellite much heavier than themselves. You just launch an updated satellite, and if it's in GSO, it's a good idea to deorbit the old one to avoid crowding.

On the other end are massive space stations -- even if there were completely automated ones, used as platforms to carry multiple devices, "park" other satellites, etc., it's obvious that failure of, say, a communications relay would warrant a replacement, especially if that heavy station is regularly refueled anyway.

If you get even larger, station can simply carry its own repair robots capable of fixing anything that is attached to it. At a GSO it probably will make more sense to keep a station with hundreds of "attachments" and a bunch of robots than to send people or a special repair satellite there. Launching people, life support and supplies for them every few months to GSO would require huge amount of fuel, and keeping living space for them would increase the amount of fuel for the initial launch, however refueling and occasionally replacing the robots would be much cheaper than maintaining hundreds of individual satellites that provide the same functionality.

Repair satellite that is sitting in orbit and maneuvers between other satellites still has to burn a large amount of fuel to change its orbit, so unless broken satellites are in a "lucky" location, it's still too much fuel compared to replacement.

It also bothers me that EVERY RECENT LARGE-SCALE DECISION IN US SPACE PROGRAM IS THE MOST OBVIOUS DECISION MADE BY A LAYMAN WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM. Send people to orbit? Build an airplane with boosters and a large fuel tank! Make space program more useful for military? Put a missile launcher there! So it will shoot missiles DOWN, man! Establish colonies on Moon and Mars? Ignore the details, but let politicians declare that it will be done somehow! You need a heavy launcher for that? Oh, it's too expensive, we thought, you can reach Mars on a Shuttle! Expensive satellites only live for 20 years? Make a repair-bot that is even more expensive to launch, and its overcomplicated mechanism will likely break in a year!

Re:I can't believe this guy

[Yooden_Vranx]

Orbital Express is a DARPA program. DARPA's job is to think outside the box and fail a lot of the time, knowing that the lessons from daring failure can be more useful than incremental success (e.g., the first DARPA Challenge). Maybe it works out like Lt Col Kennedy said, and this really does change the requirements for satellites. Maybe it doesn't, but the technology is still useful. Either way, they've tried something new. And Lt Col Kennedy's pay is the same one way or the other.

Re:I can't believe this guy

[petermgreen]

that sounds like a risky strategy, not having the software before the hardware is frozen could leave you easilly running out of some hardware rescource that you didn't realise the need for before you wrote the software.

spacecraft fuel - comet

[Anonymous Coward]

Just tow a comet and use it for fuel.... Let Exxon/Mobile setup a filling station and supply all those birds and use the fuel for flights to the MOon and Mars. Use sunlight to crack the H2O in the comet.... Of course, the cost will be over $10/gallon ($4 for taxes, $5 profit).

Oh, this is sponsored by the good ole USAF. Could this be the start of the beserkers? Beserker serial 001 which can maintain but not yet reproduce (that will come with s/n 666, version 69, to be launched in a couple of years).

Not entirely a success

[Anonymous Coward]

3x overbudget and a year behind schedule. I hope it works.

What sounds more possible?

[Thaidog]

A.) A satellite that lasts a good 20 years after years of work and knowledge accumulated on how to make them last 20 years...

Or:

B.) A super complex robo-satellite that fixes *other* satellites and stays out of repair itself.

It's A if you ask me... for a good long time.

Orbital Express

[MrYotsuya]

Finally, Andrew Lloyd Webber's vision has come to fruition

Re:Orbital Express

[lexical]

Finally, Andrew Lloyd Webber's vision has come to fruition Swing and a miss. Nice try, and thanks for playing....

Re:Orbital Express

[jacksonj04]

As far as I'm aware the plan doesn't include building a railway, but it may include roller blades. I'll get back to you on that.

Re:Orbital Express

[Anonymous Coward]

'Finally, Andrew Lloyd Webber's vision has come to fruition"

Cats in space?

Re:Orbital Express

[Anomalyst]

Cats in space?

Apostle in space? If only a postle, which postle should be used and should being a lert be a selection criteria? Once in orbit would he get a round tuit?

That doesn't sound like science fiction at all...

[physicsboy500]

..."R2, get out on the wing and fix that satellite"

*end sarcasm*

classic...

[fattmatt]

"I think we're feeling pretty good about it," USAF Lt. Col. Fred Kennedy, project manager for Orbital Express, said in a telephone interview. "We're very confident that we're going to have a nice successful mission." a nice successful mission ... gggggggggreat!

Great Weapon

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the military applications - you can send it out to do interesting things like attaching remote controlled explosive packages onto satellites. Then when war breaks out you can kill them in orbit.

You could attach thruster packages to geostationary satellites and boost them into completely different orbits.

You could just cut their solar panels off like pulling wings of flies.

Given the problems with remote refuelling satellites when they are all one-off devices, this gadget seems to be more of a weapon than a tool.

There has to be a Clancy novel in here somewhere

Re:Great Weapon

[MichaelSmith]

There has to be a Clancy novel in here somewhere

Or a Crichton novel: self reproducing repair robots take over outer space, threatening to turn shuttle fleet into spare parts.

Re:Great Weapon

[dfsmith]

Or perhaps you contact Blofeld, set up a base in a Japanese volcano, and kidnap astronauts to take over the world!

BTW, the article didn't mention geosynchronous orbits at all. Did I miss it?

Re:Great Weapon

[Original Replica]

More subtle things might be even more fun. Tapping, filtering, or modifying the data the satellite is passing on without the knowledge of the country that owns it would be a CIA dream come true.

Re:Great Weapon

[dbIII]

There has to be a Clancy novel in here somewhere

The one where the satellite designer that has never been to school works with the astronauts that have never been to school and the mission controllers that have never been to school but all are incredibly competant and take orders directly from a President that was never elected - and all of Congress and the Supreme Court are dead.

Re:Great Weapon

[misterhypno]

Or simply put thrusters on the satellites you are supposedly repairing so you can drop them on whomever you'd like TO drop them on... and blame it on the owners for making shoddy products!

Mass drivers like that are very cheap and VERY effective.

500kg dropped from geostationary orbit has quite a bit of slam when it hits... Now do the math with a 5 TON package... or drop them in groups of ten or twenty... there's not enough Bactine to cover an ouchie THAT size on the whole planet.

'Nuff Said...!

Re:Great Weapon

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if it is equipped with the aimbot software package also, then it can play by itself up to 50,000 points to unlock the rest of the kits, while the operators save 400 hours of there own time.

Re:Great Weapon

[khallow]

Too bad that satellites have a large crosssection area to mass. They'll burn up in the atmosphere. The sort of thing they're talking about are long tungsten rods and the like. Extremely high density, resistence to heat, and the low crosssection area means it'll pick up a lot of energy before it hits the ground.

Just wait...

[Bwana Geek]

If they can fix orbiting satellites easily now, we're at most 5 years away from "Pimp my Geosynchronously Orbiting Ride."

Watch the launch live!

[celerityfm]

Video:
http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia-live/ula/18488/56_ ula-atlas_v_stp_070306.asx (56k)
http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia-live/ula/18488/300 _ula-atlas_v_stp_070306.asx (300k)

Play-by-play
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070308_atlas5 _stp1_cntdwn.html

Re:Watch the launch live!

[3waygeek]

HDNet will offer HD coverage of the launch at 10 PM EST.

Re:Watch the launch live!

[celerityfm]

fyi the webcast hasn't started yet - the launch window extends from 9:37-11:42 p.m. EST. A live web cast of the launch will be available at this site. The web cast will begin approximately 20 minutes prior to the opening of the launch window.

Re:Watch the launch live!

[Almost-Retired]

It sure would be nice if just one of the above links actually worked. But its apparently all /.ed.

Geosynchronous

[Anonymous Coward]

First sentence in the article summary on Slashdot. Good to see that you ignore the actual post and go straight to the source.

Don't worry if you missed it - I'm sure the article will be repeated in a couple of days ;-)

Re:Geosynchronous

[dfsmith]

Apparently I didn't miss it. Boeing (who built the thing) says it's only going up to 492km (circular). See Mission Overview link at this page.

Given they're spec'ing a 1000km rendezvous range, I think the OE will have to be beefed up a bit for GEO. ("Sure we can service your satellite in, um, 37 years.")

Obsolesence

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Just like most of the computers ending up in landfills, many/most satellites go obsolete before they break. Will the robo-mechanic dude do upgrades too? Perhaps he'll scavenge from one satellite to fix others.

How if Orbital Express itself breaks?

[w_lighter]

Errr... i didnt read all the reply above mine but did any one think how if the Orbital Express itself breaks? Are they lunching just ONE Orbital Express or a PAIR? Coz according to the aritcle it looks like only one is lunch. And wut gurantees that it will have after spending 20 years up there and it itself is out of fuel and etc.... So i guess NASA like "hope" to lunch another before tht. Either tht or they just start shooting stuff of geosynchronous orbit one by one to make room.. haha

Re:How if Orbital Express itself breaks?

[donaldGuy]

yea, seriously .. this very much a Quis custodiet ipsos custodes situation .. not only might the Orbital Express run out of fuel, it will probably do so fairly quickly if its zipping around fixing others. When it breaks down, will they abandon the project, make a new one, or make a smaller version to fix the first one.. this logically leads quickly to an "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" scenario where we have to keep sending robots to fix robots, and with all the fear of piling up space debris, this doesn't seem like a very complete solution

Re:How if Orbital Express itself breaks?

[Anonymous Coward]

My father worked on the Orbital Express team at Boeing, so over the past 5 years he has told me a lot about it. From what I gather, the Orbital Express is (will be) relatively cheap. The OE is only meant to repair one satellite at a time. So it isn't going to stay up there for 20 years, not even close.

Also, this launch was a test, so two satellites were launched up. Apparently, the smaller one (so called NEXTSat or something like that), is the test object: it will be "docked", orbited, refueled, etc. The larger satellite is ASTRO. So, it seems that many ASTROs will be made, and custom fitted (as required by each mission), while still on the ground. They are not supposed to be reusable.

Re:How if Orbital Express itself breaks?

[DestroyAllZombies]

As somebody stated before, this is *an experiment*. It's not really going to repair anything.

It's important to remember that this kind of science is like any other conducted with a large grant. The experiment itself is fairly limited. If it goes well, then they can apply for more money to design and build another satellite with more capability (they probably have a draft of the next grant already). Since it's a limited experiment they are probably fairly sure of some degree of success. Even then they may not get any more grant money, or it may be delayed for a time until they find new sources. The final goal of a "repair satellite" is just so much smoke designed to fuel their research. I'd be surprised if they even have a plan mapped out to such a spacecraft.

So this repair bot...

[Ibiwan]

How long does it last in orbit on its own?

I caught that flight once....

[CFD339]

....that Delta V flight.....changing planes in Atlanta was a bitch, they kept changing gates faster and faster until I couldn't keep up!

Did I ever tell you how I used to own that ship?

[ArsSineArtificio]

where did they find the hot cyclops to pilot it?

You're thinking of Awesome Express.

It launched!

[AdmiralLawman]

Yay!

Say what?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Autonomous Space Transport Robotic Operations, the ASTRO

Hehe, their name, when you take the first letters, spells "Astro"! What are the odds of that?

Re:Say what?

[Tim C]

Pretty high - generally what happens is that you come up with a nice acronym then "retrofit" an expansion to it, or you have a partial name (something like "Autonomous Space Repair Operation"), someone notices that the initials are *almost* a nice acronym, then you tweak the name to make it fit.

In my experience, it's extremely rare that someone comes up with a name then realises that it also makes for a nice, snappy acronym.

Re:Say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

RotRo Rourge

OrbEx and Satellite Clarifications

[dswartz]

The Orbital Express program consists of two satellites: ASTRO (servicer) and NextSat (servicee). The program will demonstrate the capability for ASTRO to service NextSat (e.g., doing a fuel transfer). If all goes well then there will be a follow on program. Orbital Express is not a GEO sat. The shuttle cannot service all GEO, MEO, and most LEO satellites. GEO satellites require constant maneuvering in order to maintain their orbits. Satellites do not last 20 years (but they do orbit for that period and longer). Congrats to all those who worked on the program, and good luck with the demonstration!

Re:OrbEx and Satellite Clarifications

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, TDRS A and the last 4 TRANSIT satellites are over twenty years old and still in use, although in reduced capabilities. Two of those TRANSITs were actually built in the late 1960s, although not launched until the '80s. The oldest still-functioning satellites in the GPS constellation are close to twenty years old.
Of course, there are also space probes, like the Voyagers and Ulysses, which are well over twenty years old. Pioneers 6-8 are likely still functional at over 40 years of age, but no one has bothered to telemeter 7 and 8 since the '90s. Pioneer 6 was telemetered in 2000 to see if it was still working; it was.

If Only

[camperdave]

If only there were a robotic spacecraft in geostationary orbit

If only we had a proper shuttle that could reach geostationary orbit...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Fill 'er up, guv?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean we haven't got a filling station in orbit?

Where are Shell when you need them?

While we're at it, I'v got this cool idea of buying gold cover off the RAC for satellites.....

Wow

[symbolset]

Yer smart.

Re:Wow

[susano_otter]

Yer smart.

Indeed I am. It's nice to get recognition for it, every so often. Thanks!