JET PACKS for satellites. According to Daniel Campbell of Effective Space, the British and Israeli firm which is building them, that is the way to think of the robotic spacecraft his company plans to start launching in 2020. The purpose of Effective Space’s devices, which it calls SPACE DRONEs, is to prolong the lives of communications satellites (com-sats) that would otherwise be decommissioned for lack of fuel for station-keeping—in other words, for maintaining their proper orbits.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Celestial grease monkeys”
From the November 24th 2018 edition
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