[FPSPACE] Orbiting robots could repair satellites on the fly

[agzak at optonline.net]

Budget cuts killed the OMV, which, by the way, had no aerobraking capabilities and whose role never went beyond servicing Hubble, SIRTF and other few expensive "big observatories." Aerobraking tugs never went beyond conceptual studies, I suspect. The main problem was, I think, is the fact that commercial satellite manufacturers had never adopted the very philosophy of orbital repair as a financially viable option. Therefore, it was probably irrelevant which orbit the ISS, Shuttle or OMV would fly in, since commercial satellites lacked interfaces, docking mechanisms, refueling systems and modular elements, which could make  it feasible to repair them. 

Anatoly Zak
http://www.russianspaceweb.com



----- Original Message -----
From: gorski <gorski at ctc.net>
Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2008 2:20 pm
Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Orbiting robots could repair satellites on the fly
To: LARRY KLAES <ljk4 at msn.com>
Cc: fpspace at friends-partners.org

> 
> The problem of course is that there's a somewhat limited ability of a
> satellite to adapt to the repair job--and astronauts have been getting
> good at this job for a while.  Not just Hubble either--what was the 
> firstone, Solar Max I think?  (anybody else remember the "Ace 
> Satellite Repair
> Co."?)
> 
> Somewhere lurking in a drawer I have a short pamphlet on the Ronald 
> ReaganPlan for Space Utilization (title was something like that).  
> Whateverhappened to orbital transfer vehicles?  Maybe the 1984 idea 
> of a manned
> vehicle with an aerobrake was impractical to build, but a robotic 
> spacetug to move things from a useful orbit to a lower/more easily 
> accessibleorbit and back seems like it has some practicality to it.
> 
> Did that idea go the way of the dodo around when Freedom and Mir-2 
> mergedto become ISS?  Was it just budget cuts that ate into it, or 
> did the fact
> that ISS has such an incredibly steep orbital inclination compared 
> to all
> the rest of the American hardware in space, that we threw away the 
> spacetug idea because we had nowhere to tow broken satellites to?
> 
> Anybody have any idea?
> 
> --Chris.
> 
> 
> On Tue, 1 Jul 2008, LARRY KLAES wrote:
> 
> }Orbiting robots could repair satellites on the fly
> }
> }NewScientist news service June 28, 2008
> }
> }Space agencies and satellite
> }operators should accelerate their
> }efforts to develop robotic mechanics
> }that can more economically fix
> }errant satellites on demand, three
> }researchers argue....
> }
> }http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=8956&m=25748
> }
> }
> }_______________________________________________
> }FPSPACE mailing list
> }FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
> }http://www.friends-partners.org/mailman/listinfo/fpspace
> }
> _______________________________________________
> FPSPACE mailing list
> FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
> http://www.friends-partners.org/mailman/listinfo/fpspace
>