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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."
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.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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.
3x overbudget and a year behind schedule. I hope it works.
Video:_ ula-atlas_v_stp_070306.asx (56k)0 _ula-atlas_v_stp_070306.asx (300k)
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http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia-live/ula/18488/56
http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia-live/ula/18488/30
Play-by-play
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070308_atlas
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
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.
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.
I love vegetarians - some of my favorite foods are vegetarians.
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.