Robot Gas Attendants Could Keep Old Satellites Chugging (SPACE.com)

NEW YORK — Aging or broken satellites orbiting Earth could one day get a second life from two different companies hoping to build new spacecraft designed to serve as robotic gas attendants and space mechanics.

The Canadian company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) is designing a spacecraft that will essentially function as a flying gas station for out-of-fuel satellites. Separately, Vivisat, which is a joint venture of rocket manufacturer Alliant Techsystems (ATK) and aerospace firm U.S. Space, has proposed a vehicle capable of performing in-orbit satellite servicing.

Both spacecraft have the potential to rescue or extend the lives of satellites in orbit, which could be a game-changing technology for the industry, officials said.

Traditionally, satellites have been constrained by how much fuel they can carry onboard. Once satellites reach the end of their lives and their tanks are empty, the dead and decommissioned spacecraft clutter low-Earth orbit. Some also pose the risk of colliding with other satellites, or of falling uncontrolled to Earth, like the NASA climate satellite UARS that plunged into the Pacific Ocean in late September.

"The space infrastructure is an incredibly fragile thing," Steve Oldham, president of Space Infrastructure Services at MDA, told attendees Wednesday (Oct. 11) at the 2011 Satellite and Content Delivery Conference & Expo. "We totally rely on that network, but strangely we don't service it, unlike any other network that we use. Road networks, sewer networks — all of those networks we service." [Photos: Space Debris Photos & Cleanup Concepts]

More than a space gas station

MDA's refueling craft, called the Space Infrastructure Servicing (SIS) vehicle, is also designed to be more than simply a gas station. In addition to loading satellites up with more fuel, the SIS vehicle will be equipped with a robotic arm and tool kit. This will allow the spacecraft to inspect, reposition, tow and make minor repairs to existing satellites.

Earlier this year, MDA announced that it had entered into an agreement with its first client. The Luxembourg and Washington-based communications satellite company Intelsat has agreed to pay $280 million over time for the SIS vehicle to refuel certain satellites in its fleet. [Video: How the Refueling Satellite Will Work]

"I think the issue of why we want to do [this] is pretty obvious," said Richard DalBello, vice president of legal and government affairs at Intelsat. "We want to be able to touch our assets, and we want to be able to see them. A large number of satellites are de-orbited that are perfectly good, perfectly functioning satellites. The ability to refuel is a very powerful technology."

But MDA is not the only company looking to service satellites in orbit.

Vivisat's so-called Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) is also being designed to dock to satellites, but instead of transferring fuel, the MEV's own thrusters will provide propulsion and attitude control, said Bryan McGuirk, chief operating officer of Vivisat.

"We found that the majority of missions are actually retired with all subsystems functioning," McGuirk said. "We found a ready market for what we're working with here."

The value of on-orbit servicing

Vivisat's design is founded on simplicity, which should help them keep the costs low, McGuirk told SPACE.com.

"We want something that mitigates risk," he explained. "For us, the MEV accomplishes that because there's no electrical connection and no fuel exchange."

Since the MEV can dock to satellites and use its own propulsion system, the vehicle will also be able to rescue fully fueled satellites that may be in the wrong orbit and boost them into their correct position. Or, the MEV could move a satellite to a different destination to be used for a new purpose, McGuirk said.

Being able to refuel and service satellites in orbit will also help reduce the amount of orbital debris and the number of defunct satellites in space, officials said.

"We think there's a tremendous market for space awareness," DalBello said. "We believe that there is a tremendous need for greater precision in how satellites are flown in the debris environment."

For satellites that are obsolete and not worth saving with extra fuel, MDA and Vivisat's vehicles could boost them into what is known as a "graveyard orbit." This higher orbit gets them out of the way of operational spacecraft, which lowers the risk of collision. Alternatively, the refueling vehicles could tow the dead satellites into a lower position so that they can fall and break up as they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

"This is going to happen," DalBello said. "This is not science fiction. This is within our grasp right now."

You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Rocket lifts off with satellites to probe moon (Reuters)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – An unmanned U.S. rocket blasted off on Saturday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to deliver twin robotic probes to the moon in the hope of learning what is inside.

The 124-foot (37.8-meter) booster soared off its seaside launch pad at 9:08 a.m. EDT, arcing over the Atlantic Ocean as it raced into orbit.

Less than two hours later, both probes were flying freely from the rocket's upper-stage motor and were communicating with NASA's Deep Space Network.

"I couldn't be more pleased," Jim Adams, deputy director of NASA's planetary division, told reporters after the launch.

Liftoff of the Delta 2 rocket occurred two days later than planned due to high winds at the launch site and because of time required to review data on the rocket after its tanks were drained of fuel following an earlier launch scrub on Thursday.

The twin satellites on board are headed to a point in space 932,0570 miles away where gravitational pull from the Sun and Earth balances out.

From there, the NASA Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, satellites will make a long, slow approach to the moon, arriving on December 31 and Jan 1.

The twin GRAIL probes are designed to precisely map the moon's gravity so scientists can learn what lies beneath the lunar crust and whether the moon's core is solid, liquid or some combination of the two.

Combined with high-resolution imagery, ongoing analysis of rock and soil samples returned by the 1969-1972 Apollo missions and computer models, the gravity maps are expected to fill in the biggest missing piece in the puzzle of how Earth's natural satellite formed and evolved.

MAPPING MOON GRAVITY

The small boxy probes are designed to fly single file over the lunar poles, mapping the dips and swells in lunar gravity.

Linked by radio waves, the spacecraft will be able to detect changes in the tug of lunar gravity as small as one micron -- about the width of a red blood cell.

Pockets of terrain with more mass will cause first one and then the second satellite to speed up slightly as they fly over, changing the distance between the two probes in minute, but measurable amounts. Less dense regions will cause the probes to slow slightly.

The measurements are so precise that scientists have to factor out a myriad of other forces, including the pressure of sunlight and the gravitational influences of all other planets in the solar system, even the dwarf planet Pluto, currently about 2.9 billion miles (4.7 billion km) away.

Scientists believe the moon's building blocks were large chunks of debris jettisoned from Earth after a collision with an object as big as Mars.

The moon's ancient face reveals a history of impacts over the eons and other events, such as flowing rivers of molten lava. The GRAIL researchers' job is to determine how all these processes impacted the moon internally.

"Large impacts deposit a great deal of energy into a planet. They heat the interior. They potentially could cause the convection pattern to change. They can contribute to the way a planet de-gasses," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology planetary scientist Maria Zuber, lead researcher and manager of the $496-million GRAIL mission.

Besides unraveling the moon's history, GRAIL scientists expect to extrapolate their findings to other rocky bodies, both in our solar system and eventually to those beyond.

United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, manufacture and provide launch services for the Delta 2 rocket. Lockheed Martin also is the prime contractor on the GRAIL satellites.

(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Sandra Maler)

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Rocket lifts off with satellites to probe moon

1 of 4. These undated NASA images show the various stages of pre-launch preparations of NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft at Space Launch Complex 17B on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, which were released September 7, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:20pm EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An unmanned U.S. rocket blasted off on Saturday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to deliver twin robotic probes to the moon in the hope of learning what is inside.

The 124-foot (37.8-meter) booster soared off its seaside launch pad at 9:08 a.m. EDT, arcing over the Atlantic Ocean as it raced into orbit.

Less than two hours later, both probes were flying freely from the rocket's upper-stage motor and were communicating with NASA's Deep Space Network.

"I couldn't be more pleased," Jim Adams, deputy director of NASA's planetary division, told reporters after the launch.

Liftoff of the Delta 2 rocket occurred two days later than planned due to high winds at the launch site and because of time required to review data on the rocket after its tanks were drained of fuel following an earlier launch scrub on Thursday.

The twin satellites on board are headed to a point in space 932,0570 miles away where gravitational pull from the Sun and Earth balances out.

From there, the NASA Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL, satellites will make a long, slow approach to the moon, arriving on December 31 and Jan 1.

The twin GRAIL probes are designed to precisely map the moon's gravity so scientists can learn what lies beneath the lunar crust and whether the moon's core is solid, liquid or some combination of the two.

Combined with high-resolution imagery, ongoing analysis of rock and soil samples returned by the 1969-1972 Apollo missions and computer models, the gravity maps are expected to fill in the biggest missing piece in the puzzle of how Earth's natural satellite formed and evolved.

MAPPING MOON GRAVITY

The small boxy probes are designed to fly single file over the lunar poles, mapping the dips and swells in lunar gravity.

Linked by radio waves, the spacecraft will be able to detect changes in the tug of lunar gravity as small as one micron -- about the width of a red blood cell.

Pockets of terrain with more mass will cause first one and then the second satellite to speed up slightly as they fly over, changing the distance between the two probes in minute, but measurable amounts. Less dense regions will cause the probes to slow slightly.

The measurements are so precise that scientists have to factor out a myriad of other forces, including the pressure of sunlight and the gravitational influences of all other planets in the solar system, even the dwarf planet Pluto, currently about 2.9 billion miles (4.7 billion km) away.

Scientists believe the moon's building blocks were large chunks of debris jettisoned from Earth after a collision with an object as big as Mars.

The moon's ancient face reveals a history of impacts over the eons and other events, such as flowing rivers of molten lava. The GRAIL researchers' job is to determine how all these processes impacted the moon internally.

"Large impacts deposit a great deal of energy into a planet. They heat the interior. They potentially could cause the convection pattern to change. They can contribute to the way a planet de-gasses," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology planetary scientist Maria Zuber, lead researcher and manager of the $496-million GRAIL mission.

Besides unraveling the moon's history, GRAIL scientists expect to extrapolate their findings to other rocky bodies, both in our solar system and eventually to those beyond.

United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, manufacture and provide launch services for the Delta 2 rocket. Lockheed Martin also is the prime contractor on the GRAIL satellites.

(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Sandra Maler)

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Satellites Help in Battle to Contain Arizona Wildfires (SPACE.com)

The raging Wallow Fire that has burned nearly 500,000 acres of Arizona is slowly being contained by firefighters with some help from eyes in the sky.

About 33 percent of the fire is contained, but high winds that can cause wildfires to spread could tax those containment efforts. Emergency managers and responders are using satellite data from a variety of instruments to plan their firefighting containment strategies and mitigation efforts once the fires are out.

The Landsat 5 satellite captured images of the Wallow Fire burning in eastern Arizona on June 15 at 3:54 p.m. EDT. Both images are false-colored to allow ease of identification of various objects that will help firefighters and emergency managers. In the images burn scars appear in red and ongoing fire in bright red. Vegetation is green, smoke is blue and bare ground is tan. [NASA Photos: Raging Arizona Wildfires Seen from Space]

The Wallow Fire began May 29 in the Bear Wallow Wilderness area in eastern Arizona. High winds and low humidity meant that by June 14 the Wallow Fire became Arizona's largest wildfire to date — the fire has burned 495,016 acres, according to government records.

About 2,000 firefighters from across the country have joined forces to battle the Wallow Fire. They use several methods, including so-called controlled burns, where firefighters try to choke off the fire by burning anything that could fuel it. Firefighters use torches at night to burn tinder and other fuel sources.

Other crews are digging around unburned areas to create "islands" free of fire-fueling vegetation to protect homes.

Landsat also snapped images of the Horseshoe 2 fire, which began on May 8 in Horseshoe Canyon in the Douglas Ranger District of the Coronado National Forest, in southeast Arizona. The Chiricahua National Monument in the northern area of the fire was closed on June 9 and remains closed. NASA's Terra satellite has also contributed images of the fires.

As of June 16, the Horseshow 2 Fire had burned 184,198 acres and was 65 percent contained, according to government records.

The Landsat series of satellites, jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, is used by emergency managers to acquire a range of imagery and data, from floods to fires. Landsat has also provided images of the Mississippi River flooding.

Wildfires are also burning in the Southeast, with the Honey Prairie Fire in Georgia and the Espanola Fire in Florida.

This story was provided by OurAmazingPlanet, a sister site to SPACE.com.

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