The Pentagon is interested in leveraging industry work on concepts for refueling satellites in space, a DoD official said on Jan. 17.
The concept of dynamic space operations is “realistic because the commercial sector is developing ways to refuel in space, and this is mostly for the geosynchronous belt where it’s easy to move between objects,” Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb told reporters. “It has become clear over decades that a lot of what leads to the lifetime exhaustion of a satellite is fuel. If the only thing stopping you from bringing another year or three to five years out of a capability, especially as a commercial provider, is fuel, that [refueling in space] is a cost effective tradeoff. For the military, the issue of ‘Delta V’–how much gas you have left in the tank, your ability to change velocity–that little piece, every time you maneuver [a satellite] to reposition for a new mission, you’re exhausting the life of a satellite, and being able to get after that, even for basic operations, I think, would be a real win.”
“We’re really interested in seeing this work,” he said.
The U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command (SSC) has been considering on-orbit refueling and servicing as a way of extending satellite life and reducing the demand for new satellites and the costs associated with building them (Defense Daily, Apr. 11, 2022).
The San Francisco-based Orbit Fab has demonstrated technologies for on-orbit refueling and tested a prototype refueler, carrying water, on the International Space Station in 2019.
The Life Extension In-orbit (LEXI) servicer by the U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s Astroscale Holdings Inc. is to be the first spacecraft to be refueled through the RAFTI interface. The first LEXI is to launch to geostationary orbit in 2026, and each servicer would receive up to 2,200 pounds of Xenon propellant; LEXI is the first satellite designed to be refueled.
On Jan. 17, Plumb also fielded questions on SpaceX‘s Starlink communications satellite constellation, which Ukraine’s military forces have used in their struggle against Russia.
“SpaceX has done some remarkable things,” Plumb said. “Starlink is the first proliferated LEO [low Earth orbit] constellation for satellite Internet connectivity, and that is a remarkable achievement, and, of course, the Department [of Defense] wants access to this kind of commercial innovation that adds capability. Competition is good, and we need more competition in this space, and it is coming.”
Plumb did not answer a question on what DoD is doing to ensure that its commercial communications are not dependent on Starlink, given SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s wavering support of Ukrainian military objectives. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, DoD officials have not responded to questions on whether the Pentagon has a contract with SpaceX for Starlink services for Ukraine, what other U.S. agency may have that contract, the amount of the contract, and whether it is time-defined or open-ended.