The topic of servicing in-orbit satellite assets was already a hot talking point for the industry when Intelsat announced a deal with MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) in March to service its on-orbit satellites via a space-based service vehicle.
Jacob Gullish, director, Space & Telecommuunications, Futron, says the refueling satellite concept had been “a long time coming” and that the deal between Intelsat and MDA represents an important milestone for the industry.
MDA plans to launch its Space Infrastructure Servicing (SIS) vehicle, which utilizes a sophisticated robotics and docking system, into near geosynchronous orbit where it will service commercial and government satellites in need of additional fuel, repositioning or other maintenance. The SIS vehicle’s robotic arm could also be used to perform critical maintenance and repair tasks, such as releasing jammed deployable arrays and stabilizing or towing smaller space objects or debris.
For MDA, the deal was a validation of a vision to build a strong long-term business in this area, but it did not happen overnight. “We have been doing manipulation of objects in space for a long time and we felt good about taking our capabilities and moving them into commercial servicing. We looked at the on-orbit servicing value proposition and felt that with our heritage and our capabilities, we would be able to refuel existing satellites. What we really needed to do so that we had confidence in our capability and [had] something that would be of interest to the market was find an anchor customer. We worked with Intelsat over a period of three years,” says Steve Oldham, MDA president of Space Infrastructure Services (SIS).
Oldham believes the deal with Intelsat has given the company extra impetus as it seeks to sign commercial deals with other operators. “We have pre-sold half of our fuel to Intelsat. I only have half a tank left. What I am doing is talking to satellite operators and saying ‘I know you want to hang on and wait and see this working, but what if I end up selling the rest of this capacity?’”
MDA is not the only company looking to target this market and breathe new life into old satellites. U.S. Space and ATK established ViviSat as a new company earlier this year to bring a new dimension to the satellite servicing market. It brings to the table its Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) — a spacecraft that aims to connect to an orbiting satellite in order to provide supplemental attitude and propulsive capabilities without disruption to the client satellite’s operation. The MEV utilizes a space-ready docking system and a suite of integrated proximity sensors to securely rendezvous with the host satellite. ViviSat hopes to offer a range of services to operators, including: rendezvous and docking without interruption to operations of the client satellite; long-term station-keeping and attitude control; relocation of satellites to different orbital slots or to different orbit; de-orbiting satellites that are at the end of their lives; as well as rescuing and re-orbiting of satellites stranded in incorrect orbits.
Discussions between ViviSat and satellite operators “have seasoned well” during the past six months and have reached the point where there has been an exchange of due diligence materials, according to ViviSat COO Bryan McGuirk. He believes that the deal between Intelsat and MDA provided a positive impact on ViviSat’s efforts to seek its first anchor customer agreement. “I am optimistic by virtue of having a competitor enter the market. The Intelsat deal with MDA actually improved the dynamic for us. Satellite operators are no longer saying to us, ‘Prove to us that this can be done.’ Instead, they are saying ‘How does yours work, and why is it different?’ We believe we can talk about things like lower risk and flexibility rather than talking about whether something like this can be done,” says McGuirk.
MDA also is confident of more deals in the pipeline, however, Oldham admits that it will take some time to sell these services. “MDA has seen interest from a number of operators, and has gone past the starting point in terms of these discussions,” says Oldham. The company hopes to sign more agreements before it launches services.
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