Pentagon's In-Orbit Satellite Recycling Program Moving Forward

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday June 27, 2012 @01:31AM from the suddenly-babylon-five dept.

An anonymous reader writes with an update on DARPA's plans to rebuild satellites in orbit. "A year old DARPA program which aims to recycle satellites in orbit has started its next phase by looking for a guinea pig defunct satellite to use for evaluating the technology required. The program involves a Dr Frankensat 'complete with mechanical arms and other "unique tools"' and blank "satlets" to build upon.' Need parts! Kill the little one!" If we're ever going to build space craft and other things in orbit, this seems like a great first step.

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Best idea from the Pentagon in a while by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-27 01:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

It seems fairly obvious to me - Satellites become useless if just a few key parts fail, leaving the rest of the equipment in perfect working order.
If just one of the radio receiver, radio transmitter fails, the solar panel fails, the engine (gyroscope or whatever) fails, it is worthless, even if everything else still works.
The trick of course will be to standardize the parts to make it easier to mix and match.