The paradigm of the satellite industry is changing. The question is no longer whether or not robotic servicing will become a reality, but rather when it will happen. There are multiple missions in the planning stages that have brought about this shift—the Restore-L mission in development at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) project in development at DARPA, and the Mission Extension Vehicle planned for launch by Orbital ATK. Other commercial groups are pursuing their own servicing missions as well. While these are all important projects, they are all focused on servicing legacy satellites—those that are already in-space or currently in production. These spacecraft were not designed to facilitate robotic servicing. In order to take advantage of the services that future robotic servicing can provide, future spacecraft should incorporate servicing aids. If spacecraft include these aids, servicing missions will enjoy the benefits of reduced risk of damage to the client, reduced servicing cost through the use of established interfaces, decreased operational time to complete servicing tasks, and increased probability of success.
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