Saturday, June 05, 2004
ConeXpress Spacecraft Will Extend Satellite Lives
Among the hundreds of existing satellites used for telecommunications, more than 80 will stop working by 2011. This pushed a U.K.-based company, Orbital Recovery Corporation to develop a ion-propelled spacecraft which could extend the operational lifetime of these satellites by up to a decade. In this article, SPACE.com says that the first trials of the ConeXpress Orbital Life Extension Vehicle are expected by 2007.
But the company faces a serious challenge. Will it be cheaper to extend a current satellite life than to launch a brand new satellite with state-of-the-art design? More details and illustrations are available in this overview.
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