A company in the US plans to build a gas station in space to refuel satellites, helping them avoid the risk of becoming space junk.
Since the beginning of the space age, when Sputnik I was launched in 1957, humans have put more than 15,000 satellites into orbit. Just over half are still active, the rest, after running out of fuel and shutting down, burned up in the atmosphere or became space junk.
Therefore, they pose a threat to the International Space Station (ISS) and other satellites. The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates that to date, there have been more than 640 breakups, explosions, collisions or unusual events leading to fragmentation. From there, a space debris area formed around the Earth, including 36,500 objects larger than 10 cm in size and 130 million pieces of debris up to 1 cm in diameter.
CNN (USA) on December 11 said cleaning them up is very expensive and complicated, with many plans to carry out but no clear results yet.
One way to solve the problem is to stop creating more space junk, by refueling satellites instead of disabling them when they run out of energy.
“Currently, you cannot refuel satellites in orbit,” said CEO of US-based company Orbit Fab, Daniel Faber. And Orbit Fab company wants to change this.
The concept of refueling satellites in orbit was pioneered by the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2007. At that time, NASA coordinated with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States. The US (DARPA) and Boeing launched Orbital Express, a mission involving two satellites that successfully approached and exchanged fuel.
NASA then launched the Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM), aimed at further understanding the challenge of refueling existing satellites. NASA is studying the OSAM-1 spacecraft, scheduled to launch in 2026, to refuel the Landsat-7 Earth observation satellite. NASA said OSAM-1 will have a total cost of about $2 billion. Mr. Faber commented that NASA’s plan is to “surge” the satellite to access the fuel pipe, however, this will be expensive.
Orbit Fab will use the RAFTI gateway to connect to satellites and supplies. Photo: CNN
Orbit Fab has no plans to deal with existing satellites. Instead, the company wants to focus on unreleased products and equip them with a standard port called RAFTI, which will greatly simplify refueling operations and reduce costs.
Orbit Fab, which advertises itself with the slogan “gas station in space,” is working on a system that would include a fuel port, a refueling shuttle, and a fuel tanker or orbital gas station that the shuttle would have You can get fuel from there. Orbit Fab offers $20 million to deliver hydrazine, the most common satellite propellant, in space.
Orbit Fab’s first private customer is Astroscale, a Japanese satellite services company that developed the first satellite designed for refueling called LEXI. It will be fitted with RAFTI ports and is expected to launch in 2026.
Foundation professor Simone D’Amico at Stanford University (USA) evaluates orbital services as one of the keys to ensuring safe and sustainable space development. Mr. D’Amico also said that there are many reasons why this did not happen sooner. One of them is that in-orbit technology is only now becoming economically viable due to advances in satellite miniaturization.