- Subscribe to PCF Networked Blog Daily Updates
- Subscribe to our Twitter / Google / Yahoo Daily Updates
The
Pentagon’s intergalactic black-magic plot is getting ready to raise the dead.
 |
Last year, Darpa launched a program, Phoenix, to
harvest satellite parts. Now, the agency’s convening with researchers and
already looking for a prime sat candidate to pick apart. Illustration:
Darpa
|
Dead
satellites, that is. Last year, Darpa, the military’s blue-sky research agency,
kicked off a program designed to harvest parts from unused communications satellites
still orbiting the Earth, and then turn those bits and pieces — antennas in
particular — into an array that operates as a low-cost “communications farm”
for troops on the ground.
Now
that program, called Phoenix, is entering a new phase. First, Darpa last week
issued a bid to commercial satellite owners, asking for “a candidate satellite”
that’ll act as a space-based guinea pig for initial evaluations of the
technology requisite for the initiative. And today, the agency hosted a
conference on “sustainable satellite servicing” — attended by academics,
private companies and military experts — to discuss everything from the
program’s regulatory challenges to more technical “operational considerations”
necessary to revive dead satellites.
Once
fully realized, Darpa envisions the Phoenix program, which the agency wants to
fully demonstrate by 2015, working something like this. First, a servicing
satellite — complete with mechanical arms and other “unique tools” designed
specifically for the program — would be launched into geosynchronous orbit
(GEO). After that, the agency wants to launch an array of what they call
“satlets” — wee, bare-bones satellites — to meet up with, and be stored by, the
program’s primary satellite.
From
there, the satellite posse would transfer to what’s known as GEO’s “graveyard”
orbit — where non-functioning satellites linger — and start picking off
antennas and other useful parts. Once an antenna is removed from its former
satellite, it would be affixed to a satlet, which’d act as a controller to move
the antenna into position as part of a zombified array of recycled satellite
parts.
The
program is “definitely ambitious, and some might call it crazy,” according to
Brian Weeden, a former officer with the USZ Air Force Space Command who
moderated a panel at today’s event. First, there are a host of technical
hurdles for the agency to overcome. Even if they do, Darpa will also need to
address “regulatory challenges” before Phoenix can get up and running, Weeden
emails Danger Room.
On
a technical level, the agency needs to develop new robotic tools capable of
delicate, highly specific satellite work — namely, pulling apart satellites
without damaging key parts — in space. Such “intensive robotic operations [...]
nearly 37,000 km away, will likely require a level of autonomy not seen
before,” Weeden notes. And Darpa’s plan to use satlets to transform antennas
into functional space vessels is also treading untested waters. “To my
knowledge,” Weeden writes, “this is something that has never been done before.”
Darpa
plans to evaluate those primary technical challenges using the candidate
satellite they’re after, which should be “a geosynchronous satellite ending
revenue-generating operations.” In particular, the agency wants to “demonstrate
dextrous manipulation robotics,” including the removal of an antenna, and prove
that the envisioned combination of a servicing satellite and satlets can
“rendezvous and dock” with a candidate in-orbit.
Assuming
the agency’s able to finesse those techniques to perfection, they’ll still
grapple with logistical hurdles. Parking a new satellite in orbit requires
two-pronged approval from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU): an
orbital slot, and a frequency reservation. The process, however, is wrought
with heavy international competition and administrative red tape. According to
an ITU report released earlier this year, backlogs mean it might soon take up
to three years for a satellite — after it’s been approved for GEO orbit — to be
granted a specific slot and frequency.
Despite
the challenges, Darpa is clearly intent on moving ahead. In fact, the agency
last week also awarded their first contract under the Phoenix program: $2.5
million to NovaWurks Inc., a California-based division of Northrop Grumman
dedicated to “rapid innovation in several areas, including space,” company
director Talbot Jaeger tells Danger Room. Jaeger declined to offer more details
on the contract before our deadline, but NovaWurks was last year involved in
the development and testing of Mayflower, an inexpensive microsatellite that
seems akin to Darpa’s “satlet” aspirations.
Of
course, if Darpa does pull off the Phoenix program, it’d mean huge savings for
the Pentagon’s satellite programs. Right now, launching a single satellite runs
around $10,000 per pound of material. With an estimated $300 billion in dead
satellites currently orbiting the GEO graveyard, recycling their functional
parts “would dramatically lower the cost…of satellite missions for Defense
Department needs,” according to Phoenix program manager Dave Barnhart.
In
fact, Phoenix is only one part of a larger Darpa push to save money in space.
In the past year alone, the agency’s appealed for research into cheap, easily
deployable satellites to offer quick footage for soldiers on the ground,
launched a program to replace ground-based satellite launchpads with subsonic
airliners … and kicked off the Galileo program, which seeks enhanced telescopic
imagery to better evaluate dead satellites that might make good candidates for
cannibalism.
And
even after all that effort — not to mention a budget that, for the Phoenix
program alone, is currently pegged at $36 million — Darpa’s galatic zombies
will likely serve the Pentagon’s bidding alone. “I don’t think it is likely
that they will be able to replace the modern satellite,” Weeden writes. “But
[these arrays] could be a useful compliment.”
No comments:
Post a Comment