DARPA's 'Phoenix' Program To Bring Satellites Back From the Dead

coondoggie writes "Scientists at DARPA say there are some 1,300 satellites worth over $300B sitting out in Earth's geostationary orbit (GEO) that could be retrofitted or harvested for new communications roles and it designed a program called Phoenix which it says would use a squadron 'satlets' and a larger tender craft to grab out-of-commission satellites and retrofit or retrieve them for parts or reuse." This program incorporates a design challenge aspect, in which various teams compete to design systems to effect the actual capture. From the article: "In the Zero Robotics challenge, three finalist teams emerged from a series of four, one-week qualifying rounds: "y0b0tics!" (Montclair, NJ); "The Catcher in the Skye" (Sparta, NJ); and "Nitro" (Eagleville, PA). Then in June the teams gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to watch via video link as their algorithms were tested on board the ISS, DARPA said. The algorithms were applied across three situations in which the SPHERES satellite simulated an active spacecraft approaching an object tumbling through space. In each scenario, at least one of the teams was able to approach the tumbling target and remain synchronized within the predefined capture region, DARPA said."

Space junk is a problem!

[wjcofkc]

Space junk in orbit is on it's way to becoming a very serious issue if we ever get around to having a substantial amount of people in earth orbit across multiple habitats (hotels?). I have long thought we need to build a number of trash collecting orbital craft to collect all this junk down to the tiniest bit then send it all crashing down through the atmosphere to burn up. While this is a more productive solution, the bigger problem of space junk is still all the little tiny things zipping around.

Re:If I recall..

[henrym]

They did repair several satellites that their upper stages failed to ignite, and were stranded in low earth orbit (~300 miles). This article is mostly talking about refurbishing satellites in geosynchronous orbit which is about 23,600 miles up. That's WAY above the ability of any current manned spacecraft any nation has at the moment.