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No Astronauts: All Aboard the Orbital Express!

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Is that a battery,
or are you just
happy to see me?
(click to view full)

Defense Industry Daily usually confines our coverage to procurements, but we also cover militarily significant field tests. A DARPA program called Orbital Express, which just achieved the first ever servicing of a satellite by another satellite in space, certainly qualifies (video link at DID). There are more tests to come, and their success will be watched closely in many quarters.

The Orbital Express advanced technology demonstration couples a prototype servicing satellite (ASTRO) and a surrogate next generation serviceable satellite (NextSat). Together, they are meant to test robotic, autonomous, on-orbit refueling and reconfiguration of satellites. If that were possible, it would mean faster, less risky missions to maintain and extend the lives of America's critical military satellite fleet - and the technology would have more than a few civilian/NASA uses, as well.


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