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Sky+ UK.
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Hopefully a mini tug system is finally getting off the ground. The video on this site shows nicely how the concept will work
effective-space
effective-space
Interesting satellite life extension proposals
- Thread starter Analoguesat
- Start date
A
archive10
Guest
Nice idea. Highly commendable, actually.
And also making a lot of sense - many sats still work, expect they're out fo fuel.
(although they won't last forever - another hundred years and they'll probably all be dead).
However, consider that these, erh, service-spacecraft would have to support a multitude of different satellite spacecraft designs (American, French, Chinese, Indian), with a multitude of different mechanical and electrical interfaces, just to service a couple of satellites.
And this is presuming that the sats want to be served. What if they're designed for a single life-cycle, and therefore has not "re-fuelling mode"? What if there's no socket to connect to?
Then you need to consider putting a spacecraft in orbit that will navigate to, and around these other commercial "billion-dollar" spacecraft (the satellites), and dock, service, and detach without f*ck*ng things up, and then do this multiple times?
Only way I see this could work was if the service-module was incredibly cheap (sending anything into space isn't), or if they work really, really slowly. In other words - a very slow moving repair service. But even so, the repair service would be just another satellite, and would run out of fuel at some point...
Would then another service vehicle arrive and service the service vehicule??
To be honest, I think a working refurbishment system for geo-stationary satellites would have to be an integrated solution, ie with the birds and the bees designed fro each other in the same go, with common interfaces, common software, and common life-cycles.
May the next generation from Boeing or Ariadne?
The mind boggles...
And also making a lot of sense - many sats still work, expect they're out fo fuel.
(although they won't last forever - another hundred years and they'll probably all be dead).
However, consider that these, erh, service-spacecraft would have to support a multitude of different satellite spacecraft designs (American, French, Chinese, Indian), with a multitude of different mechanical and electrical interfaces, just to service a couple of satellites.
And this is presuming that the sats want to be served. What if they're designed for a single life-cycle, and therefore has not "re-fuelling mode"? What if there's no socket to connect to?
Then you need to consider putting a spacecraft in orbit that will navigate to, and around these other commercial "billion-dollar" spacecraft (the satellites), and dock, service, and detach without f*ck*ng things up, and then do this multiple times?
Only way I see this could work was if the service-module was incredibly cheap (sending anything into space isn't), or if they work really, really slowly. In other words - a very slow moving repair service. But even so, the repair service would be just another satellite, and would run out of fuel at some point...
Would then another service vehicle arrive and service the service vehicule??
To be honest, I think a working refurbishment system for geo-stationary satellites would have to be an integrated solution, ie with the birds and the bees designed fro each other in the same go, with common interfaces, common software, and common life-cycles.
May the next generation from Boeing or Ariadne?
The mind boggles...
- My Satellite Setup
- TM 5402HD
Sky+ UK.
- My Location
- Scottish Borders
As far as I understand it there isnt any refuelling as such - the tug will just clamp on, and use its own onboard ion thrusters for the duration of the enhancement mission
I know there has been some ideas about clamping onto the apogee kick motor nozzles in the past. These will be pretty much standard so maybe that how it will actually be done rather than trying to find a suiatble mating surafce on the main bus area of the satellite?
I know there has been some ideas about clamping onto the apogee kick motor nozzles in the past. These will be pretty much standard so maybe that how it will actually be done rather than trying to find a suiatble mating surafce on the main bus area of the satellite?
Last edited:
Pride Of Cucamonga
Regular Member
- My Satellite Setup
- Cheap piece of junk Spanish (Tecatel) 120cm(x110) dish, Inverto Ultra twin LNB and Sky HD box.
- My Location
- Valencia (city)
How often would this device need to reposition Astra 2 satellites to maintain decent reception?