Commercial satellites get a new lease on life with the first space docking
The first docking of two unmanned commercial satellites in orbit has taken place. Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle-1, or MEV-1, connected with Intelsat 901 at an altitude 36.076 km (22.416) mi above Earth on February 25 as part of the project to extend service life for satellites running out of propellants.
Satellites are expensive to build and launch, so it is frustrating to see a perfectly functional spacecraft discarded or abandoned because its propellants have run out. Northrop’s MEV-1, for example, is designed to dock with satellites that are aging, match their orbits and then take over maintaining the orbit and attitude.
MEV-1 launched on 9 October 2019 and performed a series orbital maneuvers in order to rendezvous with IS-901 at 180 mi (290km) above geosynchronous orbit. Northrop said the satellite had been removed from service in December 2018 after serving for over 19 years. Its customers were transferred to another Intelsat.
Source:
https://newatlas.com/space/northrop-grumman-docks-commercial-satellites-first-mev-1/
