SpaceX launches satellite repair drone with robot arms to orbit

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SpaceX will launch a trailblazing satellite-servicing mission today (July 21), and you can watch the action live.

A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today during a nearly four-hour window that opens at 5:15 p.m. EDT (2115 GMT). You can watch it live via SpaceX beginning about 15 minutes before launch.

SpaceX calls today's launch MRV-MEV because it will send up a Mission Robotic Vehicle and three Mission Extension Pods (MEPs). These spacecraft will be operated by SpaceLogistics, a subsidiary of Virginia-based aerospace giant Northrop Grumman.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches a batch of Starlink satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. (Image credit: SpaceX) MRV-MEV is headed to geostationary orbit (GEO), 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth. At this altitude, orbital speed matches the velocity of our planet's rotation, allowing spacecraft to "hover" over the same patch of ground continuously. For this reason, GEO is a popular destination for spy, communications and weather satellites.

The new mission will work to extend the lives of such satellites . The MRV is equipped with two 10-foot-long (3 meters) robotic arms, each built by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. It will use those arms to attach the MEPs — the first three ever to launch — to three separate satellites in GEO.

"Once installed, the MEP uses electric propulsion to provide orbit control and momentum unloading for a client satellite," Northrop Grumman wrote in an MEP fact sheet . "The MEP is controlled by the customer via a self-contained C- or Ku-band telemetry and command system, and [is] capable of providing up to eight years of life extension for a typical 2,000 kg satellite in GEO."

The Australian satellite operator Optus booked one of the MEPs, and Intelsat hired out the other two, according to Tech Times .

The MRV and MEPs will reach GEO separately. When it's rendezvous time, the robotic-armed spacecraft will grab an MEP and ferry it over to its client satellite, Tech Times reported. The MRV will then remain in GEO after it has installed the third MEP, waiting for other such "satellite jetpacks" to reach orbit.

In addition to installing MEPs, the MRV "can relocate, inspect, repair and upgrade spacecraft while in orbit," Northrop Grumman's website states .

"MRV includes a Northrop Grumman-developed Passive Refueling Module (PRM), the first refueling interface standard approved by the U.S. Space Force , which enables MRV to be refueled in orbit," it adds. "With advanced robotics technology and Northrop Grumman's proven experience in satellite servicing, the mission delivers an unprecedented capability and new class of system that can continuously evolve to support novel or increasingly advanced missions for our nation, making assets in space more resilient."

That "proven experience in satellite servicing" consists of two previous Northrop Grumman projects. Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1) — the first-ever commercial satellite-servicing spacecraft — launched in October 2019 and successfully rendezvoused with its target in GEO (the communications satellite Intelsat 901) four months later. MEV-2 launched in August 2020 and docked with Intelsat 10-02 the following April.

Neither MEV-1 nor MEV-2 used Mission Extension Pods, however. Each of those previous efforts employed a single servicing craft, which made its way to the target satellite, docked and performed life-extension duties on its own.

If all goes to plan today, the Falcon 9's upper stage will deploy the MRV 35.5 minutes after liftoff and the three MEPs at 10-minute intervals after that.

In a departure from most Falcon 9 missions, there will not be a first-stage landing today.

"Due to the additional performance needed to launch these payloads to geosynchronous transfer orbit, this will be the 32nd and final flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19, and 27 Starlink missions," SpaceX's MRV-MEP mission description reads .

SpaceX's rocket-reuse record is 36 flights , set earlier this month during a Falcon 9 launch of the company's Starlink internet satellites.