NASA's Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office (SSCO) at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, in partnership with the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, wants to create a robotic gas station in space to service with fuel the thousands of satellites currently orbiting Earth.
This would increase life expectancy of many satellites by puting off costly launches and slowing the rate of needed material sent into space.
During their three years collaboration, SSCO and KSC also developed a robotic technology that can also be used to fix malfunctioning satellites and build entirely new structures in outer space. Therefore, "the capability to refuel and repair satellites at this orbit could make geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) more sustainable and help mitigate orbital debris problems," officials with NASA's Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office wrote on their website.
