Industry Offering On-Orbit Satellite Servicing

摘要

The U.S. military relies on constellations of satellites to provide it with everything from precision navigation and timing to intelligence data, but officials face a conundrum when those critical spacecraft require servicing or repair. To get at the problem, the Pentagon and industry are eyeing new initiatives to use robots to perform on-orbit satellite servicing and life extension work. "When I first joined the satellite industry and we were thinking about refueling there were about eight satellite servicing companies that we identified," said Jeremy Schiel, acting chair of the Consortium for Execution of Rendez- vous and Servicing Operations, or CONFERS, executive committee.