A New Satellite Is Preparing To Repair An Old Satellite
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 лют 2020
- Northrop Grumman's Mission Extension Vehicle is currently closing in on Intelsat 901 with a daring plan to provide it new propulsion and stabilization capability so that its communications gear can continue to provide service for years to come.
The idea of repairing satellites in space is not a new one, but has largely been limited to Space Shuttle missions crewed by astronauts, making them only viable for things like the Hubble Space Telescope.
But now a new class of robotic repair satellites are preparing to start giving old satellites a new lease of life at a fraction of the cost of a new spacecraft. - Наука та технологія
Scientist 1: "Well, there's no docking port, so it looks like IntelSat is totally f*cked. F*cked right in the thruster nozzle."
Scientist 2: "...Okay I have an idea. It's gonna sound weird but just hear me out."
Reality gets more Kerbal every day.
Kerbel needs to become more kerbel now.
I don't know why but this sentence made me incredibly happy, thanks!
The Claw doesn’t care what it docks to.
@Wroger Wroger yo what
@@trr94001 THE CLAAAW
MEV: “this is going to feel... weird”
[sound of latex glove snapping]
IntelSat: “WTF!”
"Using your whole fist doc?
MEV: "It's ok, getting an erection during this procedure is perfectly normal."
Intelsat: "But I don't have an erection."
MEV: "I do though."
You win!
HA! Nice.
Reminds me, I should get my prostate checked...
@@bluemountain4181 This channel is now not suitable for under 13's.
4:00 And that kids, is where cubesats come from
Thank you, that made me laugh :)
I was half expecting the refuelling sat to be a giant orange tank with a Clamp-O-Tron on it
Me2
ACME Space Clamp Company.
the classic
The thought of a BFR as a flying GEO fuel tank dispensing and refilling ME pods is attractive.
A variant of ME pods could also be used to tow intact dead birds back down out of orbit at all levels too.
Francis X. Clampazzo from Futurama... AKA "Clamps"
So they didn't just rotate some landing legs in awkward orientation so they could grab the satellite?
@@halvor9797 because it's the kerbal way.
Landing legs? None of those satellites were designed to land anywhere...
only in Kerbal 😂
I think it's telling how many of my audience members no longer get kerbal references.
@@scottmanley telling you that we need more KSP videos!
"inserting the probe into the thrust chamber" made me giggle.
Rocket scientist pillow talk...😝😝😝
I think it is a reference to doing anal. I mean, where else can you get any thrust ?
@@guilemaigre14 >>> Just beware of _propellant residue._
😝😝😝
is this how cube-sats are made? xD
"mated" seems like the right word given how you described that mating procedure... 😳
Bow chicka wow wow.
Satellite heavy metal.
bruh
That satellite is not 18 yet...
@@noahway13 Neither is the refueling probe. Let young satellites make their experiences!
3:45... I hope they discussed consent before probing.
Lithostheory hahah I was just thinking it was a bit of a phallic docking procedure.
Probe love is beautiful, ok!
In Space no one can here you Squee like a piggy!
kinky
…making lots of little satellites? LOL
Gives new meaning to the term "fly safe"
Fly United?
@@AndrewBlucher fly with protection or fly protrcted
3:43 this is the kind of porn that bender from futurama watches
HPD1171 "Bite my shiny ass"
@@tomf3150 "metal"
Better Bender than the robot from Robot Chicken.
I N S E R T P R O B E
Oh god, you're right, it is!
3:43 The satellite equivalent of the kiss of life :^D
NSFW
Oh this is so exciting!
Sure is, Cody!
one can only hope the the probee was as excited about the prospect, as the prober... :@
I just realized. Cody called robot space sex excited.
Hi how r u
I am happy we finally got the grabber unit from the techtree
this is the advanced "presidential grabber" capable of grabbing any satellite by the thrust chamber.
It was delayed for 60 years because we researched the full social technology tree instead. And now we have Woke Twitter.
@@KuK137 Yes, because those who only feel and do not think for them selves are pro-science.
This is seriously cool. I have, somewhere in my collection of Analog magazines, a story about an astronaut who had a short notice launch to go up and repair a satellite. One of the concerns raised in the story was about electrical potential that might have been built up in the satellite while it had been in orbit. I must dig out the story and re-read it. . . It goes back to about 1965. . .
It had never occurred to me that the moon would have an effect on the position of the Geostationary Satellites. . . The implication is that there is no such thing as a permanent orbit for ANY satellite. . . Am I correct? The Moon is, indeed, a Harsh Mistress.
Yeah, orbits are always shifting ever so slightly due to gravitational pulls from, well, everything. Hell even our moon's orbit is constantly changing by roughly an inch every year or so.
Least that's what I think, I'm going off of possibly dated Highschool-level science at best.
I had a subscription to Analog when I was in high school...
@@jessegd6306 The main reason the Moon's orbit is changing is because it's slowing down the rotation of the Earth, and in order to conserve angular momentum, its orbit drifts outward. Way into the future a lunar month will be the same as an Earth day. (If the Sun doesn't go Red Giant first, or the Moon gets kicked out of Earth's orbit)
Post the author and title when you find. Still buying and reading Analog whenever I can.
Steven Harbauer ‘’Stuck”, by John Berryman, June 1964. Some ”misremembering” on my part. . .
8:20 Can this also be used to de-orbit old satellites?
Easily lol
Someone has to pay for it though...
Sure, but the value you get from saving a satellite, compared to the cost, pales in comparison to the little value you’d get from downing a satellite. As the person above said, someone’s gotta pay for it.
Yes but you’d need huge amounts of fuel - maybe in decades when we get an asteroid in orbit to provide the fuel - but then you could refurbish them instead of trashing them.
Yes, - see my ESTEC videos from last year
Maybe in the future solar sail craft can lock onto and deorbit old satellites. It would solve the fuel problem.
Reduce, reuse, and recycle.... in spaaaaaace
That’s the way it was in the 50s now it’s throwaway and we buy new I prefer the 50s before plastic
The MEV reminds me of those early animations of a retrovirus attaching itself to a cell wall.
3:38" It will maneuver behind it, insert a probe into it and grab its thrust chamber".
that's exactly the same thing I told my wife last night...
Grab 'em by the thrust chamber
ARCHER: *_"Just the tip!"_* 😝😝😝
@@Allan_aka_RocKITEman also: PHRASING!
@@OnionChoppingNinja >>> 😄😄😄
FWIW: That _nozzle docking_ thing reminded me that I had a medical appointment just a couple of days ago, and I got _the finger wave,_ if you take my meaning...😊
When real life is just as cool as science fiction. Ty for the cool science video.
My thoughts exactly! Technology is getting really crazy...
Only just as? :P
@@oisnowy5368 Nah, its not even just as cool since we are still stuck on Earth for the most part, maybe if we can make access to orbit comparable to long distance flights now cost wise I might agree that real life is just as cool as science fiction.
We be having baby-sats in 9 months.
Is that how microsats are made? :)
nope, wrong hole.
Some new cubesats be on their way
@@rimpri >>> That's what SHE said...😄
No there won't, not based on where the MEV is sticking its probe.
As an Animation producer and enthusiast, I would love to see production credits for those animated sequences. Thanks.
This is so cool! I always felt there was a market for extending the life of GEO satellites. We are currently living in a great time for space exploration. Thank you for making these videos Scott. This channel has the most interesting and excellently delivered content for us space nerds.
talking about Sat on sat action :P
Kinky
”Här ser vi ett kärlekspar av högst sällsynt slag, utföra en parningsritual.”
Mother of god this is total Thunderbird 3 action. It is so good to be alive today.
That docking maneuver looks nasty
Comments:
80% - Satellite Rule 34
15% - Earth is Kerbin
5% - Actual curious people. (Deorbiting, recycling, stuff)
John Daniel Esguerra
Change that 60% to 80%
/r/IAmVerySmart
r/ihavereddit
@@kaelandin how does one have a website?
Sounds like Satellites are gonna have gas caps soon.
Oil tankers in space
For some reason, nearly every time you or anyone else covers one of these 'new' concepts I think to myself "finally! shouldn't we have already been doing that?"
I guess the figuring out part has to wait until the need is no longer in the future (ie you will need this in your tenure as ceo, rather than the next guy will need this).
Is that really pessimistic?
The main thing is cost. Used to be that launches were so expensive that building a new satellite was cheaper than maintaining one on orbit, but now highend satellites are getting more expensive, low end ones (like the service sat) are getting cheaper, and launch costs have dived as companies scramble to match SpaceX's prices. So it suddenly became a worthwhile endeavor 5-6 years ago, and then it's taken a while to develop the systems.
not really pessimistic, just realistic
I think it would be cool to do the piggy back method for the hubble when its reaction wheels fail.
I'm not sure how many of these you already knew about and what you read from news articles but the fact that you know your stuff here makes me impressed. Good stuff.
I hope they find a way to service Hubble to keep it going for a while longer.
Hubble have been service by astronauts, unfortunately Hubble internal components will required complete replacement
I would bet that a well planned Dragon 2 mission could service Hubble, if they could figure out how to tether the two craft together. Dragon 2 has that lovely trunk that could hold the replacement parts, and I'm sure they could figure out a space suit with an umbilical for such missions.
Get it to orbit the Moon.
@@illuminate4622 good luck
@@jamesburleson1916 kaching
Could somethings like this happen to Hubble to repair the reaction wheels?
It's being considered.
Hubble does have anchor points for the Shuttle's manipulator arm.
Prolly quicker than waiting for JWST...
The hubble does have an anchor point but it doesn't have plug and unplug reaction wheels. Only the hands of an astronaut have the dexterity needed to replace the reaction wheels. It would be easier to simply deorbit the hubble and launch a new one with modules that could simply be unplugged and replaced with the robot arm.
@@stevenf1678 I guess the idea is to permanently attach a service-probe with strong enough reaction wheels on board to hubble via the anchor points. The service-probe doing the orientation-keeping, hubble dooing the observing.
@@thePronto JWST and Hubble have different roles, and while it likely would be faster to just attach new reaction wheels to Hubble that wouldnt work for computer problems as far as Im aware.
This morning 02/07 at 6 am French time, I saw a line of at least 6 or 7 satelites very close together from each other heading south-east.
this kind of stuff could take the Hubble, clamp a section on the back of it with new gyros, more sensors, and whatnot and keep that beast doing what it was built to do, combine that with the robotic arms and you could swap out internal parts like the shuttle used to do and install modern systems to give it more life.
I doubt it could do something as complicated as swapping out internals (though I could be wrong), but at the very least we could boost Hubble's orbit so someday astronauts can service it again.
As always, yu have great content, provide excellent details. Thanks!
Damnit Jim! I’m a robot, not a doctor!
Thank you for your content, Scott.
3:19 I know this is supposed to be a serious video but I started snickering when I heard that for the first time.
This channel certainly keeps *us* up to date as well
Great idea, if it works. Hopefully goes well. Another sign that cooperation is key. Not only in space. Humanity needs to learn to cooperate in all disciplines. Or quite frankly were done.
Fascinating, thx Scott
Remember how those reaction wheels failed with internal arcing and pitting? How protected would those robotic arm joints have to be?
It wouldn't take much. In this case the static charge is mostly from the ion engines on the tugboat satellite. the arm or hand in this case would be electrically isolated for the reset of the tugboat to minimize any charge on it. then each joint bearing would simply have a small conductive wire attached to both sides of the bearing. Remember the bearings on robotic arms do not coninousely rotate over 360 degrees. Instead they only joint bearing will only move back and forth with lesss than 300 degrees of motion.
This is all so cool. Thanks for the great video!
Very cool! Be even cooler if in the future they could recycle/reuse old satellites by just combining this part or that pod or module, like a set of lego blocks in the sky
This is really cool. I've just started a masters degree in satellite engineering with a focus on formation flying and docking of satellites. My plans are to demonstrate a fully autonomous formation flight and dock on a 3DOF air bearing satellite simulator.
I've often spoken to colleagues about this sort of orbital repair. Once to see I wasn't alone in that.
I'd think the modular approach would be more popular in future. If the thrusters or gimbals fail then just send new propulsion module to replace it. It's easier to design the comms part to be more robust
3:34
Whoah! Uhhh huh huhh that satelite is gonna score beavis... science kicks ass
Scott.. your description of the docking process was... vivid.
You ever think about writing some of those torrid romance novels?
Hoo yes! This is interesting!
Nice update, enjoying it
It's good to see that there are companies out there working on solutions to real world problems like this.
I hope this leads to some sort of standardization on, for example, some kind of interface to be grabbed in this kind of mission or some standard refueling interface in the future
Hey Scott! I love your videos. One question I had for my meteorology teacher in 5th grade was if there's no resistance in space, why doesn't a space craft that is burning propellant not constantly moving away from earth. Through KSP I learned that the answer is gravity. The question I have for you is it possible to use electromagnets to propel a craft, or use it to make small corrections. A very simplified explanation is a ball bearing held in place by springs surrounded by electro magnets. If you want to move in a direction, supply power to the corresponding magnet. What do you think?
It would just displace the craft by a fraction of the spring's length. The center of mass of the entire system will stay on the same orbit as it was. Conservation of impulse and energy.
Whoa congrats on the 1 mil subs :D
perhaps this will open the way to small docking port standards for future satellite missions
Everyone of your videos sir is amazing and interesting to watch. Thanks for the great content!
That's really amazing. That should really help extend the life of a lot of sats and reduce the overall cost of space tech.
Good to know. Thanks, Scott.
it'd be cool if they took the lessons learned from this and service hubble before it crashes sometime in the next decade
Exciting and fascinating presentation.Looking forward to more.
This is some awesome new technology! The potential for such "satellite extenders/boosters" is huge given the amount of satellites up there and the ones that are still being put into orbit every year.
The other cool consequence of repairing satellites in orbit and extending their life cycles is the reduction of "space junk" that comes from old satellites that have either collided or are slowly falling back to earth.
Those are pretty cool missions. Would love to work on them!
JWST has a short projected life in its primary mission due to the limited coolant supply on board. I wonder if we could fly a service satellite to refill/recharge the coolant to extend JWST's primary life? Given how long it has taken to build and test JWST, and how expensive it is, seems like extending its primary mission would be worth exploring. The same technique could possibly help with other space observatories that break down over time, like Kepler.
JWST is a lot harder to service, not just because of its location. its extremely sensitive (sensitive thermal protective system on one side, and mirrors on the other) and it would be very hard for a space craft to service it. also, idk how a spacecraft could manage to clamp on to it.
Kepler would probably be easier tho.
So, Yeah....., had some dirty thoughts at 3.50 or so, comment was made allready, no need to repeat.
However...., is this the first (intented) tugboat in space? AWESOME!!!
To all the engineers and techs involved in this, THANK YOU!!!
We're getting closer to a ring around the Earth.
Sounds like Space AAA is getting off the ground nicely.
Anybody else hear 'Space Systems Yanny' at 5:40? 😎
It really is incredible that this type of stuff is happening now. The future of space is bright indeed!
I work across the hall from the NASA folks doing satellite servicing. They were formed from the remains of HST’s development branch after the last servicing mission rendered them moot. Cepi couldn’t let NASA’s servicing capability die even if the upper brass didn’t fully appreciate it.
Thanks!
That is so cool!!!! A great way of starting to reuse/recycle what would have been spacejunk
Good to see these coming to life. I wounder if they will look into a special one just for the JWST as we know hubble had its troubles over the years
Wooooow! That is sooo cool! Especially that the MEV can un-mate and go assist elsewhere! And obviously the overlord of servicing, the MRV! What a cool future-worthy solution!
I was born in the early Fifties. I make a parallel to someone born fifty years prior, An old ex-horse and coach driver marvels at the Grand Prix cars of the Fifties.
It is absolutely marvellous what is going on in these times.
Congratulations on a million subscribers!!!
This should be happening sometimes tommorow/this evening (depending on timezones). will happen during the night (so that ground based sensors can keep an eye on things) over Hawaii.
Nothing better than doing this on a Saturday night in Hawai'i. Especially after a few Kona Longboards...
@@thePronto it's a hard job but somebodies got to do... (i will never not be jealous of the people who operate telescopes in Hawaii)
I like the Pod Idea, cuz you can place them as self docking auxiliary propulsion units on several units. Of course, that's what you're talking about.
Fascinating truly amazing
Congrats on a million subs!
I've never been so early but I'm just as happy when I watch these videos
About frigin time they do this.
Hi Scott, off topic but I've been wanting to ask, do you recon we could extend the Voyager missions by lanching coms relay satellite/s? It wouldn't need to be fancy, just radio relay.
Thanks for the videos!
It's the power supply that failing, not the radio. In the decade it would take to catch up, the replacement would be dead too.
Send out a TAU instead, the baseline that would provide would improve Astrometery
We need something like this for the Webb.
You forgot SolarMax was grabbed and fixed by a shuttle mission, also. Featured in The Dream is Alive.
1 Million subscribers, congratulations.
Glad I was a part of this
It would be great if a similar MEV could be used to keep Hubble functioning longer
extreemely cool, i hope in the future satelites are designed with standerdized grapple points and refuling probes
I love this kind of stuff! This is the coolest stuff in space now
When two satellites love each other very much....
This is so cool. Wouldn't you have loved to be a software or hardware engineer on this project!
I bet the arms are from Canada
and congrats on 1m! woo!!
Now *that's* a docking operation.
what a great idea, did a Proctologist come up with the docking maneuver Scott?
absolutely brilliant! ...
Gotta catch 'em all!
That is actually seriously cool.
Finally, recycling in space :) This has always been one of my favourite 'what if' space systems engineering/business cases. Cool to see it taking off finally!