The Phoenix Frankenprogram to harvest the corpses of ended satellites and cobble together new ones appeared like one of DARPA’s more daft concepts, but this one has in fact kicked off its 1st stage of development. The strategy is to 1st launch a service craft– abundant with robotic arms and adequate processing hp to work separately if required– followed by the little base-unit skeleton satlets. The service mothership would dip into an orbital location called the “graveyard”, grabbing pre-chosen cadavers and choosing off practical parts, particularly valuable antenna collections, with its robo-limbs. Those parts would be jury-rigged to the bare-bones units, creating practical Pentagon satellites and saving the $ 10,000 per pound launch price. So far, a $ 2.5 million agreement to establish the required modern technology has actually been put in location, and bids for the no-frills satlets went out last week. A lot of grimy work is still needed, so check the video clip after the break to see if the overly-elaborate plan can easily un-moot $ 300 billion of orbiting cold steel.

Continue reading Pentagon begins Phoenix testing to cut defunct satellites, MacGyver brand-new ones from orbitPentagon begins Phoenix trial

to collect defunct satellites, MacGyver revised ones from orbit initially appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:46:00 EDT . Please see our terms for usage of feeds. Permalink Slashdot|Wired|E-mail this|Opinions

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