Created: 2023-02-23
Updated: 2024-07-15
Company - Katalyst
Product/Service
- Classification
- Miscellaneous
- Category
- Space Situational Awareness (SSA)
Space Robotics
On-Orbit Servicing
- Status
- Development
- First launch
- 2024
On-orbit servicing mission planned for military satellite in 2025, SpaceNews, 2024-03-27.
- In a mission targeted for 2025, a robot satellite in geostationary orbit around 22,000 miles above Earth will rendezvous with a military satellite and attempt to affix a new imaging sensor payload on the spacecraft.
- The servicing vehicle — equipped with a robot arm developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Naval Research Laboratory — will seek to connect the payload to the satellite’s launch adapter ring.
- The Mission Robotics Vehicle (MRV) that will perform this mission is being built by Northrop Grumman’s subsidiary SpaceLogistics. The company under an agreement with DARPA is equipping the vehicle with two robot arms designed by NRL with DARPA funding.
- Motiv Space, known for its space robotics expertise, is providing engineering support. Katalyst Space, which specializes in on-orbit servicing hardware, designed a “space domain awareness” sensor that gives a satellite greater visibility of its surroundings in the GEO belt, a crucial zone for military communications and reconnaissance spacecraft.
- Katalyst is also supplying a “retrofit attachment system” to facilitate the attachment of a payload on unprepared satellites. Lee explained the retrofit system allows a payload to be installed on the satellite’s existing launch adapter ring.