DARPA's 'Phoenix' Program To Bring Satellites Back From the Dead

coondoggie writes "Scientists at DARPA say there are some 1,300 satellites worth over $300B sitting out in Earth's geostationary orbit (GEO) that could be retrofitted or harvested for new communications roles and it designed a program called Phoenix which it says would use a squadron 'satlets' and a larger tender craft to grab out-of-commission satellites and retrofit or retrieve them for parts or reuse." This program incorporates a design challenge aspect, in which various teams compete to design systems to effect the actual capture. From the article: "In the Zero Robotics challenge, three finalist teams emerged from a series of four, one-week qualifying rounds: "y0b0tics!" (Montclair, NJ); "The Catcher in the Skye" (Sparta, NJ); and "Nitro" (Eagleville, PA). Then in June the teams gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to watch via video link as their algorithms were tested on board the ISS, DARPA said. The algorithms were applied across three situations in which the SPHERES satellite simulated an active spacecraft approaching an object tumbling through space. In each scenario, at least one of the teams was able to approach the tumbling target and remain synchronized within the predefined capture region, DARPA said."

Comments

Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably the first major space age steps we've taken since landing on the moon.

Re:Finally!

[fisted]

yeah disregard the mars..

Re:Finally!

[hutsell]

Finally! An incentive for a real life scenario worthy of a nonfictional evil genius. Three hundred billion dollars -- Muahahahahaa!!

Re:Finally!

[ColdWetDog]

Why is it that all of these folks doing nefarious deeds and undermining the foundations of our society ...

are still using modems?

Does it have something to do with AOL?

Maybe it's just me....

[Anonymous Coward]

But isn't this technically a form of 'space salvage' or perhaps 'space piracy'? Did they get permission to retrofit these satellites from the owners? What's the 'abandonment period' for spaceborne objects to be considered 'up for grabs'? Assuming they're not already, how long until the military is using this either to capture and repurpose foreign satellites, or perhaps use them as disguised weapons to cause conflict between 3rd party nations?

And that's just what I came up with in the first 15 seconds of reading the summary.

Re:Maybe it's just me....

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if any of the "out of commission satellites" are actually full functional.

Re:Maybe it's just me....

[rtb61]

Space salvage would likely be similar to sea salvage. Once they are out of control the are open for capture and control because of the risk they represent to other satellites. Self destruct would be frowned upon as an open act of war due to shrapnel's ability to many other satellites including the space station at random. This would include spy satellites, either keep control, get them out of orbit, repair them or salvage them. Capture techniques are simplified in space because you have plenty of time to apply inertial energy to the satellites to get them to a capture point at acceptable motions and velocities, so even powerful electro magnetic fields and electricity generating solar sails with vector attitude adjustment would work.

Re:Maybe it's just me....

[LourensV]

Some of them might. Satellites need fuel to stay in the right place, and to keep themselves pointing in the right direction (solar panels at the Sun, antennas at the Earth). It's called station keeping. Sometimes otherwise functioning communications satellites run out of fuel, and end up being useless because they're pointing the wrong way. Refuelling them can give them a new life. If there's still fuel but the thrusters or reaction wheels break, you have the same problem. That might be fixed by swapping these out. Micrometeoroid damages your solar panel wiring? If it's on the outside, perhaps a flying soldering iron can fix it.

Obviously these are just ideas, you have to be able to get to the satellite first, and take up a fixed position relative to it even if it's rotating (see out-of-fuel above). That's what they're doing here. Then you have to grab it. There's some interesting work being done by Jon Goff and co. over at Altius Space Machines in essentially using static electricity to grab things in space, or electroadhesion. That seems pretty viable as well. Now we need satellites that are easier to fix up in space, or fancy tools to work on existing ones. All in all this is looking quite promising, although there's still a ways to go before we're sending robot mechanics up there.

barely relevant comment here

[Anonymous Coward]

This is kind of the plot of the Planetes manga/anime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes

Capture is easy. Reuse is hard.

[girlintraining]

Capturing defunct satellites is easy. Disassembling them, assembling them into a new configuration, validating the work, and then deploying it again is hard. Very hard.

Re:Capture is easy. Reuse is hard.

[fisted]

Your comment is wrong and overrated.

Capturing withough inflicting damage seems rather hard, a major part of it being the approach + synchronization with the satellite.

That being said, why would disassembling and reusing existing parts be "hard. very hard"? How would it be harder than the normal process of developing and deploying a sat?

Re:Capture is easy. Reuse is hard.

[VortexCortex]

It's harder because of the Space involved...

Re:Capture is easy. Reuse is hard.

[demonlapin]

Normally, you don't have to disassemble and reassemble using only robotic arms.

Re:Capture is easy. Reuse is hard.

[girlintraining]

Capturing withough inflicting damage seems rather hard, a major part of it being the approach + synchronization with the satellite.

I was not trivializing the task accomplished. I was saying that when you look at the entire project goals, it's amongst the easier. If they simply return to Earth with the satellite, they'll oblitherate most of the cost benefits associated with recycling -- they still have to pay to launch again, and the payload will be used kit, not new. If they do it in orbit, they'll need to basically build a factory in space and mate it to a recycling center. To date, nobody's even attempted large-scale industrial process in orbit. It is a task that dwarfs the challenges of the ISS. We've also learned that things in orbit tend to accumulate fungus, and not a small amount either. There are modules on the ISS that frankly wouldn't meet health code if people lived on them here. When you consider all the obstacles involved in creating a functional assembly line for this kind of thing, and doing it in an economically viable fashion, yes, capturing is the easy part.

How would it be harder than the normal process of developing and deploying a sat?

Let me put it in terms you can relate to: If I walk into a recycling center, select twenty dead computers at random, disassemble them, and put them on a table, how many working computers can you make? Oh, each of those computers is 5 to 30 years old. They also contain explosives and occasionally radioactive material. Now realize that computers at least have standards for how they're supposed to fit together.

Re:Capture is easy. Reuse is hard.

[khallow]

Let me put it in terms you can relate to: If I walk into a recycling center, select twenty dead computers at random, disassemble them, and put them on a table, how many working computers can you make? Oh, each of those computers is 5 to 30 years old. They also contain explosives and occasionally radioactive material. Now realize that computers at least have standards for how they're supposed to fit together.

And someone stuck those computers in hard radiation for most of their life. So various parts don't work or work incompletely.

Re:Capture is easy. Reuse is hard.

[flyingfsck]

I would guess that many of those 1300 satellites only need some propellant to be able to stabilize themselves and then they will be good to go again. So the first thing to try would be capture and refueling.

Space junk is a problem!

[wjcofkc]

Space junk in orbit is on it's way to becoming a very serious issue if we ever get around to having a substantial amount of people in earth orbit across multiple habitats (hotels?). I have long thought we need to build a number of trash collecting orbital craft to collect all this junk down to the tiniest bit then send it all crashing down through the atmosphere to burn up. While this is a more productive solution, the bigger problem of space junk is still all the little tiny things zipping around.

Re:Space junk is a problem!

[iroll]

Space junk is a problem; defunct satellites are not really.

The number of defunct satellites is finite, small, and decreases over time. Satellites are big and have predictable orbits. They're not hard to dodge. If you actually wanted to collect them, you could. Satellites are the least dangerous fraction of the space junk.

The dangerous fraction of the space junk is all of the tiny fragments that have been left behind by, for example, anti-satellite missile tests (lookin' at you, China) among other things (lost bits and pieces, leftovers from stage separations).

That fraction of the space junk can be further divided into the chunks that we can see and track, and the pieces that are too small to track and don't have known paths. It presents the biggest hazard because you can't always see it, certainly can't always dodge it, and it moves at tens of thousands of km/h relative to other satellites--that's a lot of kinetic energy.

So yeah, orbital garbage collector sounds sexy, but it's not going to even put a scratch in the actually dangerous part of the space junk cloud.

If I recall..

[lionchild]

I could be wrong, but wasn't retrieving and repairing satelites one of the goals of the Shuttle Program?

Re:If I recall..

[henrym]

They did repair several satellites that their upper stages failed to ignite, and were stranded in low earth orbit (~300 miles). This article is mostly talking about refurbishing satellites in geosynchronous orbit which is about 23,600 miles up. That's WAY above the ability of any current manned spacecraft any nation has at the moment.

Re:Cute

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is that by the time you've put those 1,000 up, another 2,000 will be defunct.
It's like having a car that only has fuel for a week, an rather than re-fuel, you buy another car.

In fact, if re-fuelling is a major cause of demise (and consequent loss of correct, useful, orbit) this would be a 'easy' fix, much easier than remote robotic disassembly & reconstruction.

Hmmmmm.

Re:1300 dead ones?

[cryptizard]

How is it a wonder? If there were 1300 VW beetles scattered around the globe, what is the chance you would ever wander upon one in your entire life? Earth orbit is a big place.

Re:1300 dead ones?

[nurb432]

Yes, space is big. But 1300 is just the start, and from my understanding there are 'preferred' paths out into orbit, so i'm sure that a lot of this junk isn't exactly trivial. And unlike hitting one of those beetles and walking away from the accident, you don't get a 2nd chance up there.

DARPA to Rip Up Dead Satellites, Make New Ones

[Hugh Pickens writes]

DARPA reports that more than $300 billion worth of satellites are in the geosynchronous orbit, many retired due to failure of one component even if 90% of the satellite works just as well as the day it was launched. DARPA's Phoenix program seeks to develop technologies to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components such as antennas or solar arrays from retired, nonworking satellites in GEO and demonstrate the ability to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost. "If this program is successful, space debris becomes space resource," says DARPA Director, Regina E. Dugan. However satellites in GEO are not designed to be disassembled or repaired, so it's not a matter of simply removing some nuts and bolts says David Barnhart. "This requires new remote imaging and robotics technology and special tools to grip, cut, and modify complex systems." For a person operating such robotics, the complexity is similar to trying to assemble via remote control multiple Legos at the same time while looking through a telescope. "If you've got a satellite up there already, don't worry, this isn't going to be some illicit grave-robbing mission to create hordes of evil Frankensatellites," reports Dvice. "DARPA says the agency will make sure and get permission before it chops anything up for scrap."