Since the beginning of the space age (since the launch of Sputnik I in 1957) humans have sent more than 15,000 satellites into orbit. Just over half are still working; The rest either burned up in the atmosphere after they ran out of fuel and completed their service life, or are still orbiting the planet as useless piles of metal.
Therefore, they pose a threat to the International Space Station and other satellites; The European Space Agency estimates that more than 640 “abnormal events leading to fragmentation, explosion, collision or disintegration” have occurred to date.
This created an aura of space debris around the planet, consisting of 36,500 objects larger than 10 centimeters (3.94 in) and 130 million pieces as large as 1 centimeter (0.39 in). Cleaning up this debris is costly and complex; There are various plans for this, but concrete results have not been achieved yet.
One way to start solving the problem would be to stop producing more scrap by refueling satellites instead of decommissioning them when they run out of power.
“You can’t refuel a satellite in orbit right now,” says Orbit Fab CEO Daniel Faber. But his Colorado-based company wants to change that.
“When satellites run out of fuel, you can’t keep them in the right place in orbit and they become dangerous debris, floating at very high speeds and risking collision,” Faber explains. “But at the same time, the lack of fuel creates a paradigm in which humans design spacecraft missions around moving as little as possible.
“This means we cannot have tow trucks in orbit to recover any remaining debris. We cannot have repairs and maintenance done, we cannot improve anything. We can’t control anything if it’s broken. There are so many things we cannot do, we work in a very limited way. This is the solution we are trying to offer.”
space surgery
The concept of refueling and servicing satellites in orbit was pioneered in 2007 when NASA – in collaboration with DARPA (the research arm of the US Department of Defense) and Boeing – launched Orbital Express, a mission involving two specially built satellites . successfully docked and changed fuel. NASA then worked on the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM), which further explored the challenges of refueling existing satellites.
The agency is currently working on OSAM-1, which is scheduled to launch in 2026, and will attempt to capture and refuel the Earth observation satellite Landsat-7, which is running out of gas.
“This is a mission to refuel a satellite that is not ready to be refueled,” says Faber. “So they have to perform effective surgery by cutting into the satellite to gain access to the fuel lines. “This allows for impressive satellite repair capability, but it comes at a cost.” NASA said OSAM-1 will cost about $2 billion in total.
Orbit Fab has no plans to take over its existing fleet of satellites. Instead, it wants to focus on those not yet released and equip them with a standardized port called RAFTI for Rapid Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface; This will significantly simplify the refueling process and keep the price tag low.
“What we’re looking to do is create low-cost architecture,” says Faber. “There is not yet a commercially available fuel port to refuel a satellite in orbit. For all our grand aspirations for a vibrant space economy, what we’re actually working on is the gas cap; we are a gas cap company.”
Orbit Fab, which promotes itself with the slogan “Gas stations in space”, is working on a system that includes a fuel port, refueling services that will distribute fuel to a satellite in need, and refueling tankers or orbital gas stations. Where the shuttles can get fuel. It announced a price of $20 million for the delivery of hydrazine, the most common satellite fuel, into orbit.
The company launched two testbeds to the International Space Station in 2018 to test interfaces, pumps and plumbing. In 2021, it released Tanker-001 Tenzing, a fuel tank demonstrator that informs the design of existing hardware.
The next launch is now planned for 2024. “We are delivering fuel to geostationary orbit for a mission undertaken by the Air Force Research Laboratory,” says Faber. “Right now they’re treating it as a demonstration, but it’s getting a lot of interest from across the U.S. government and from people who understand the value of refueling.”
Orbit Fab’s first private customer will be Japanese satellite service company Astroscale, which developed the first satellite designed for refueling. This system, called LEXI, is planned to be installed on RAFTI ports and is currently scheduled to be operational in 2026.
An original approach
According to Simone D’Amico, an associate professor of astronautics at Stanford University who is not affiliated with Orbit Fab, on-orbit service is one of the keys to ensuring the safe and sustainable development of space. “Can you imagine a land mobility infrastructure, roads and cities without gas stations and auto repair shops? “Can you imagine disposable cars or planes?” she asks. “The development of space infrastructure and the proliferation of space assets is reaching a critical volume that can no longer be sustained without a paradigm shift.”
D’Amico adds that there are many reasons why this hasn’t happened before; until recently, due to a perceived lack of need given the limited number of spacecraft and the fact that on-orbit servicing technology is only now becoming economically viable. advancing satellite miniaturization.
He believes Orbit Fab is original, especially from a marketing perspective. “It’s probably the only company in the world that has positioned itself to install ‘gas stations’ in orbit,” he says. “I think Orbit Fab’s approach is really forward-thinking and could pay off in the medium to long term. However, it poses a high risk in the short term as satellites must be designed with reusability and refueling in mind.”
Initially, Orbit Fab plans to find a market as a fuel supplier to companies like Astroscale that plan to inspect, repair and upgrade satellites in orbit or do debris collection. Success in this sector could persuade large telecom companies that operate large numbers of satellites to change their business models and embrace refueling and servicing, according to Faber.
He adds that once the model for sending and delivering fuel to orbit is established, the next step is to start producing the fuel there. “We want to build refineries in orbit within 10 or 15 years,” he says. “We turn ground-launched materials into a variety of chemicals that people want to buy: air and water for commercial space stations, 3D printing feedstock minerals for growing plants. Emerging commercial “We want to be the industrial chemical supplier to the space industry.”
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